When Jimmy was 12 years old, his father took him to see a musician named Gene Johnson, who played the mandolin, in a small club near Detroit, MI. Gene became one of Jimmy's bluegrass hero's and later on….his partner in the group Diamond Rio. Born in Minneapolis, MN on August 26 and when he was a teenager he had already mastered the banjo and gave lessons, however, by the time he was in college in Nashville, he found out that guitar players were more in demand than banjo pickers, so he mastered the guitar. Jimmy joined the Tennessee River Boys in 1984 at Opryland theme park alongside Marty and Dan. \