As a child, Dean was exposed to the music of the 1920’s onwards through his father’s record & reel to reel collections. including country artists such as Hank William's, Slim Whitlam, Willie Nelson, Freddie Fender, old-time honky tonk music and classical & he could also not help being exposed to Japanese music that his mother would sing around the house. Even before Dean was a musician he had a solid grounding for all types of music. 

Dean listened to a lot of poplar music on the radio, But it was Dean's first guitar teacher, Steve Brown that introduced Dean to the Blues , giving him a copy of B.B.King's "Live at Cook County"-this introduction had Dean hooked,and led him to listen to Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Johnny Winter, Albert Collins, Clarence Gatemouth Brown, Robert Cray and Jeff Healey. Dean's other major influence was Mark Knopfler from Dire Straits.…