Spend any time with David Gogo, and you will quickly learn he is a man of conviction and passion. He works hard, he plays hard, and he knows what he wants. And if you're not careful, the musical results will leave you flat on your backside. Gogo wouldn't have it any other way.

Born and raised in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Gogo quickly emerged as one of those amazing guitar prodigies all of us grown-ups marvel at. A local legend as a teenager, he was a slinger who could do no wrong. He lived and breathed the blues and hung out and played guitar with Stevie Ray Vaughan and Albert Collins. He signed a major record deal and success was imminent.

And then he walked away from it all. As Stevie Ray would say, he couldn't stand the weather.

"The most frustrating thing about it," recalls Gogo, "was the record label trying to make me play music that obviously wasn't what I was all about. It made me wonder 'Why did you sign me? Why did you go see this blues guitar guy and sign him to a record deal if you wanted him to sound like the #@$% Tea Party?' It didn't make any sense."

Not many young musicians with visions of success and fame would have the stones to walk away from what appeared to be a golden opportunity, the chance of a lifetime. Yet Gogo has no regrets. There were consequences and he admits he was disillusioned at times. He'll also emphasize how he is stronger, and happier for it.

"I had to pick up the pieces and start again," he says, "but luckily, I was young enough."

The genesis of Gogo's musical passions took root innocently enough. As a youngster, he became captivated with the music in his father's record collection, especially 1960s British rock. Of course much of that material was blues inspired and soon Gogo began to research the names credited for writing these songs (exotic names he says, like Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf) without even realizing he was already plotting his career path.

"It really drew me," he says, recalling his initial infatuation with the music. "You can't start it like a car and you can't stop it with a pistol and when something like that speaks to you, it just speaks to you."

Gogo credits his parents for encouraging and supporting his interests, even though neither played an instrument themselves. They were simply pleased with his commitment to learning and quickly arranged for lessons. He eventually graduated from an acoustic guitar to an electric and the urge to perform soon followed. At age 11, however, your choice of venues is limited so it was off to the talent-show circuit.

"I think in my first show we did Sunshine of Your Love by Cream," says Gogo. "I had a buddy and I taught him the bass line and he basically played it by memory more than playing the instrument."

Keep in mind this is around 1980 when others of Gogo's generation were infatuated by Depeche Mode and the B-52s, not Cream.

Shortly thereafter, Gogo was profoundly influenced by a savior, a trendsetter who gathered legions of aspiring young guitarists under his wing, a veritable pied piper within the music industry. Stevie Ray Vaughan was doing more than making a name for himself, he was breaking down barriers and a lot of people were beginning to notice.

"It was great to have a contemporary guy come along," says Gogo, "a young guy who was kind of a hero for thousands of young guitar players like myself. That was exactly what we wanted to do - be a white blues guitar player who would be taken seriously. He was all of that and more. I remember the first time I heard his album Texas Flood and being completely knocked out. I couldn't believe it. It was like a dream come true. This was the guy I was looking for. This was the guy I wanted to be."

Gogo remembers the first time he saw his newfound hero live. His uncle took him a concert at Vancouver's Pacific Coliseum where Vaughan was opening for Men At Work, a bizarre double bill to say the least. It was Gogo's second encounter with SRV, however, that was the stuff dreams are made of.

Vaughan was headlining the Royal Theatre in Victoria and Gogo decided to head down hours ahead of time to scope the place. Proudly sporting his Stevie Ray hat and shirt, Gogo caught the eye of Vaughan's manager who happened to be on a pay phone.

"He called out, 'Hey, are you going to the show?', recalls Gogo. "This was just when Stevie was starting to hit it big and they were kind of blown away that they could go to Canada and there was some young guy dressed up like him."

Once Gogo made it to the hall, he asked the local promoter to try and get an autograph from Vaughan who was preparing for a sound check. That promoter went one step better and got Gogo invited backstage and then, incredibly, on stage for the actual sound check.

"He was more than accommodating," says Gogo about Vaughan. "He let me play his guitar and just hang out. It was neat because for the next half-dozen times he came back to Vancouver before he died, I got to see him every time. The last time I saw him, I was just about ready to sign my own record deal.

"It was fun for both of us because he got to see this kid go from the hero-worship stage to a kid doing his own thing. He always told me, 'I'm just a guy. I'm me, you're you and groove on that.' I'm just so disappointed he's not around today. I can't believe it's already been around 12 years."

No doubt, when you hear Gogo play today, you don't have to try too hard to detect the Stevie Ray Vaughan influences. That's influences, and not mere imitation. You'll also recognize Gogo's style is reminiscent of another guitarist of considerable fame, that being the legendary Albert Collins.

"He blew me away the first time I heard him," says Gogo about Collins. "I went to see him because he was a blues player. I didn't really know much about him. With that first note he hit, he did it to me. I was a lifelong fan from there on.

"I was lucky to meet him several times and I ended up playing with him on stage on a number of occasions. He was a really cool guy, very friendly, a real pro with awesome, awesome power on the guitar."

Gogo cites the work of two other prominent players for helping develop his style. Magic Sam was one. "He had this real youthful energy, a real raw emotion that really spoke to me."

The other guitarist was Peter Green, an integral part of Fleetwood Mac when it was it its bluesiest best, long before the days of commercial pop stardom. "He was a guy who drew me back into the subtleties," recalls Gogo. "I liked his singing and playing and he wrote some great songs as well. Peter Green was the guy who got me thinking more about tone and more about taste and more about refining my sound."

So there was Gogo, playing the blues and hanging out with Stevie Ray Vaughan, opening shows for and sharing the stage with the likes of Albert Collins and Buddy Guy. He was getting more and more popular, and was consistently playing to larger crowds. That's when EMI came calling and a record deal seemed like the next logical step. Except it turned out to be a fateful decision.

"I'm not trying to sound condescending towards the record company," recalls Gogo, "but when I did get the deal, it wasn't a big deal. I had been playing music all my life and I never sent a demo tape to a record company to try and get a deal. All of a sudden, there was this big buzz about what we were doing and we were getting these record deals and management deals and it all seemed to make sense.

"It wasn't until I let go of the reigns of what was happening that things started to screw up. I was always the guy in the band who decided what songs we were going to do and what the poster was going to look like and all these things. Once I had managers to do that, that's when things started to screw up."

Gogo then experienced the unthinkable. Music wasn't fun anymore. Because he was playing what he was told to play, it became a job. He couldn't cut his hair the way he preferred. He was told to wear certain clothes. Disillusionment evolved into anger and Gogo admits he began to dislike everyone around him because of his newfound circumstances. Despite strong sales of his first self-titled album and new marketing opportunities created as a result of a Juno nomination, he recognized his situation was intolerable.

"I basically said 'Drop me, see if I care'!" EMI obliged.

For the first time, Gogo had to stop and lick his wounds, heal, and try to pick up the pieces. Rekindling his musical inspiration was the first of several hurdles to overcome. Re-establishing his fan base and overcoming the public perception that he was a failure followed closely thereafter. These were gloomy times.

"Then one day it just dawned on me," recalls Gogo. "I played music and did all this stuff and I was doing fine before I met any of those idiots in Toronto, so why let them affect my life at all? It wasn't until I realized that these outside influences have nothing to do with what I'm about. So I started being my own boss again and now things are going great."

Step one was to revert back to his first love, the blues, which he did with gusto. Gogo released another CD entitled Dine Under the Stars. This was recorded live in his hometown of Nanaimo and captured much of the raw energy and intensity of his stage performances. It was an independent release and designed for Gogo to sell at his gigs.

"I really like that record because that was the first thing I did after I decided to re-establish my career," says Gogo. "We basically just rolled tape for two nights and from there, it went gangbusters. I just wanted to capture live what I did with the band because a lot of people said to me they really dug what I did live and it was too bad they couldn't get that on CD."

It didn't take long before a European blues label called Dixiefrog Records picked it up and Gogo was back on the map. That was followed by a blues-rock release called Change of Pace.

"It was a little more of a commercial album," explains Gogo. "That record didn't do as well as I felt it should have. Even though the first single actually went top-40 in Canada, people didn't put my face onto that song or that song onto my face. I would do shows in marketplaces where we had big airplay and I still got my blues crowd. I think it's a good album but I also think I've moved on from that album. At that time, I was just trying to write and not have any blinders on in terms of style."

Then came a noble experiment, an all-acoustic CD with the appropriate title Bare Bones. It reveals a different side of Gogo and serves as a testament to his continuing evolution within the vast boundaries of the blues genre.

"Bare Bones is a cool little record," says Gogo. "I think I definitely play better acoustic blues now than I did when I made that record but records are basically just a snapshot in time. Some people absolutely love that record and don't like my electric stuff. It continues to do really well every time we do an acoustic tour. We sell a whack of them.

"I spend about half the year now just doing acoustic shows, especially during the winter months when I don't like to cross the mountains in the old van. There's been a great acoustic circuit and luckily I've been accepted into it, and there are some people that just know me as that guy. I've got my old National guitar, and an old Gibson from the 1920s, and it's a real challenge to entertain a roomful of people like that."