Craig is a native New Yorker lived in California from 1969, when as a “love child,” he arrived in San Francisco to begin a new life, to 2009, when he moved to New Mexico. His Mom, Shirley, was one of twelve siblings born of Jewish heritage in a suburb of Warsaw, Poland. Anticipating Europe’s impending disaster on the near horizon, Shirley’s father got himself to New York City in 1935, then sent for his wife to join him. Together they proceeded to bring one child at a time across the Atlantic to America. By the time the first kids had arrived in the U.S., five of the six remaining offspring had died in concentration camps. The sixth, or last remaining fugitive still in Europe, a brother, was sent to Siberia by our unwavering ally, the Russians.

Craig’s dad, Alfonso, of Neopolitan-Italian, Catholic ancestry, was born in Harlem. So were his 2 brothers and even his mother, too. Actually, Craig was the first of his family not born in that unique, stubborn, Italian neighborhood of upper Manhattan. 115th Street near Pleasant Avenue was a strange little white island in the middle of a great black sea– Harlem in the late forties was primarily Negro, over-populated, destitute, impoverished–and the official birthplace of every member of the paternal side of Craig’s family. (Not counting the ones who came over on a boat!)

Craig himself was born on November 21, 1947, at the start of the baby boom. After WWII it was almost impossible to find a place to live in America, particularly in the cities. In New York, Craig and his parents had to shack up with Al’s folks in the homey, lovable, soon-to-be-downtrodden South Bronx… (“I still feel slightly competitive with anyone I meet who’s from Brooklyn!”)

In a tale too gory for this G-rated website (just kidding), a few seemingly unrelated events led to the astonishing discovery of a latent, undiscovered talent in the disruptive, albeit high I-Q'ed mind of Craig Rory. On one occasion he found himself in possession of abilities in music, especially the principles of harmony. He wound up in an a capella singing group, an uplifting social blessing that lasted for years. It ultimately led to his picking up the guitar and beginning an independent course of study which continued for most of his life. By the mid seventies Craig was taking lessons from jazz guitar great, Pat Martino. Craig was enjoying a lifelong appreciation of music in general and jazz in particular.

Second to his interest in music, painting, starting with watercolors, was always a significant avocation of Craig’s. Ironically, his main focus shifted, by small degrees, from playing guitar to visual art. Painting has become Craig’s full-time endeavor to the exclusion of any other serious undertakings, especially any over-materialistic opportunities that might present themselves in the future. Who has the time and, quite frankly, it's more interesting to learn how to exist with a modicum of comforts, commodities and consumptive interests, a lifestyle harmoniously in line with a personal philosophy of living simply without the clutter of too many meaningless material possessions which, incidentally, one must work to obtain!

Craig takes a more than casual approach to his art these days, “I feel as though I’m paying homage to these great artists. I only hope I’m doing them justice with my paintings of them. I wish to show each one in the best possible (or impossible) light. The incredible contribution to my own life these wonderful people made was beautiful and profound. All those emotional, inspirational, thought-provoking sounds, songs, compositions, arrangements, orchestrations, intimate communications and other forms of spontaneous combustion–I wanted to show the artists doing what they most loved to do–their art. But, I’m also trying to illuminate people with my own art, and to help them understand the magnitude of the contribution these various people made to the rest of us with their music.

“It may sound silly, but I often imagine my subjects in Heaven, each doing his or her respective ‘thing,’ still alive inside of their art, which remains very much alive inside of us. And they will always live on that way, too… for eternity.”

Craig lives in New Mexcio with his partner Kristen, in a house they share with with Pookie & Bo.