Jack grew up as a Navy brat, living in California, Rhode Island, and Alaska. After high school in Alaska he moved to Dallas, which had a vibrant music scene.

With a promise of work in the local clubs, Jack moved to Houston and quickly found himself playing with many local artists like Rick Gordon, Shake Russell, and John Vandiver, among others. He played in the local scene on bass or guitar, backing up acts in clubs like Anderson Fair, Theodore's, Corky's, and the Texas Opry House, while also fronting his own band.

Artists like Townes Van Zandt, Lucinda Williams, Lee Roy Parnell, Gurf Morlix, and Blaze Foley were playing in the same clubs, and Jack soon joined forces with a great bunch of musicians from Bryan, Texas--Rick Richards, Rick Poss, and Kline Reeves--that became the art rock band, Taxi Dancer. 

Most of the '80s and half of the '90s was spent with Shake Russell, first as a bassist in that band and, for the final 6 or 7 years, as duo mate and lead guitarist, sharing the writing and singing. As a duo, Shake and Jack were a fixture in the music scene in Texas and beyond, releasing several albums together.

Recording all those albums, Jack learned about and fell in love with the art of recording and in '96, he opened his own studio, White Cat Recording in Houston. 

Since then, his time has been divided between recording/producing and performing solo and with a band. He has released five albums of his own and has played with many artists, including Ray Wylie Hubbard, Greg Trooper, Tracie Lynn, Susan Gibson, Danny Everitt, Michael O'Connor, Hayes Carll, and Randy Weeks, while producing and recording dozens of titles at White Cat Recording Studio for other songwriters. 

In 2012, Jack released his fourth solo CD, A Real Good Place to Start. The title speaks to the creative process, where, in order to move forward, you have to reinvent yourself to some extent with every new project. 2013 saw the release of a fifth solo project, entitled Grit and Jangle.

After recording several more projects at his White Cat Recording Studio, Jack closed the facility during the Covid pandemic. In 2022 he moved to the Austin, Texas area and continued to undertake projects in the new White Cat Recording Studio; during this period, he began playing bass guitar in the Bill Kirchen Band. Bill is an original member of Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen; he is well-known for decades of successful national and international tours, with numerous albums under his own name. Much of Bill’s latest album—Cat Out of the Bag, which will be released in May of 2026—was recorded at White Cat, with Jack playing bass and adding support on guitars and backing vocals.  Jack continues to tour with Bill Kirchen, while working at his studio. Recently, he played bass on several cuts from Tom Russell’s album, Mount Olive.