Born in 1960, Amy Jo Westin grew up on the shores of White Bear Lake, Minnesota, the youngest of four girls.
"I had a wonderful childhood. Mom and Dad loved music and they both played the piano and sang. For fun sometimes Dad recorded himself playing and singing. I always thought that he should be on the Perry Como show. Like a lot of kids, I took piano lessons for several years. What I learned really helped me when I traded playing air-guitar with the Beatles for the real thing. In my early teens my older sister gave me her old six-string but I found it hard to play, so I kind of gave up. Then she came home from college with her new12-string and wow! I played it whenever I could. This colorful dream started to unfold, like realizing a true passion. Mom and Dad got me my own 12-string when they saw I was serious, and I soon started writing songs. I felt too shy to sing them for anyone else, so I would wait until I was safely alone to play them for an imaginary audience. Gaining confidence is a long journey… and it’s still not over."
The University of Minnesota didn’t offer a singer/songwriter major. Amy chose the equally practical major of studio art, and she and a few talented friends formed a groovy little short-lived rock band called "AMY TWIST & THE TWEEZERS". For the next several years, Amy sang in the choir at Arlington Hills Lutheran Church, kept writing and performing, and looked for musical partners. "One Friday or Saturday night I went to a friend’s concert at THE BLUE GUITAR and noticed the cute guy named Mark who ran the place. After an evening of gathering up my courage, I took a deep breath, and asked him if I could play there sometime. He told me that I should sign up for the next open-stage." After that show Mark insisted that Amy play at his first all women’s open-stage two weeks later. "I think all the women that night played three or four songs. The Blue Guitar was underneath the music store where Mark worked, so when I told him I was looking for some new equipment he took me upstairs. We ended up talking and playing each other a few songs."
Both were smitten by each other’s work, and by each other.
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 Mark Edward Adams began harmonizing in the womb with his mother Virginia Adams in 1951. Virginia, grandmother Susan, father Ed, sisters Beth and Mary, brother Tom, and the young Mark performed at churches and service clubs in and around Marshalltown, Iowa as The Adams Family Singers. The first song Mark recalls writing was VOTE FOR BARRY, during the 1964 Presidential campaign. He also remembers his knees nervously knocking underneath his robe during his solo for the Central Junior High Chorus Christmas Pageant. At age 16, after years of struggling with piano and violin, Mark got his first guitar, and began writing and performing his own songs publicly.
While attending Marshalltown Community College Mark worked part time at Seberg Pharmacy for the father of film star Jean Seberg. Her activism for Civil Rights in the late 60s made Jean a target of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover leaked the concocted story that Jean was illegitimately pregnant by another Civil Rights activist, not her estranged husband French writer Romain Gary. The resulting media hype staggered the already weakened Jean, and she miscarried. An open casket funeral was held on September 18, 1970 in Marshalltown. Jean hoped to show the world that Nina Hart Gary was indeed her and Romain’s daughter.
Mark performed two songs at the service: a Johnny Cash/ June Carter song, "JESUS WAS A CARPENTER," and one of his own tunes, "WHAT’S THIS WORLD A COMING TO". The news of the death of Jimi Hendrix made the day doubly tragic.
Jean found comfort as well as talent in Mark’s music and took him under her wing. Her encouragement bolstered Mark’s confidence that he might just have what it took to make music his profession. They remained friends until her suicide in 1979. "I’M FLYING" on the CD SAIL AWAY seeks to capture the voices echoing in Jean’s mind when she was plucked from obscurity by Otto Preminger to star as Joan Of Arc at the age of 17.
Mark left college to pursue theater and music full time, part time, full time, solo, duo, trio. In the late 70s and early 80s Mark toured in the rock band Second Nature with his sister Mary, Jim Finders, and another close friend. After having achieved local and regional success, even attracting interest in Nashville, marriage and children brought Second Nature to an end. It was back to part time solos, and duos. Sister Mary still often joins AMY & ADAMS on stage.
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