He began his music career at the ripe old age of seven taking piano lessons along with his older brother Carl.  By the age of nine, he switched from the piano to guitar.  This change was more the result of Carl excelling at the piano while Duane was, let's just say, fumbling around.

At that time rock-n-roll was getting started and he heard the sound of the guitar being featured in songs and he liked those sounds.  He took lessons at Lou Ames Music Store located in Lynn, MA for several years.  Beginning in his junior year at Peabody High School in Peabody, MA, Duane along with high school friend John Delucca, formed the band "Duke & The Earls", and performed at dances.  He then formed the progressive rock group SIRKUS and for several years performed at concerts and other venues in the eastern and mid-Atlantic states.

His song writing began at a young age and by the time he was performing with SIRKUS he had a number of works that were being performed regularly.   He never considered himself to be really well versed in music theory.  His writing came, as he says, "from the heart - theoretically stumbling all the way."  His works are diverse generally with melodic tunes and lyrics that tell stories.  After several years of performing and following the musician's dream to become a star, he found himself in Burbank, CA with a major record label contract essentially in hand when, as happens in the music industry, a wave of new music swept through the music industry.  Not wanting to change his song styling, as the story goes, he sold all of his instruments except one acoustic guitar, and for the next twenty-two years raised a family, worked in his other life as a CPA and did not play or compose his music.

By the summer of 2003 he found an opportunity to sell his CPA practice and began playing guitar again.  This led to more guitars and, oh yes, writing songs again.  By 2005 he started performing in small venues in the Concord, NH area as solo acoustic singer/songwriter.  In 2008 he will be releasing two CD's, "Off The Shelf", which includes the first of his newer songs, and "In Our Time", a collection of stories about life.  Duane gets many inspirations for his songs from his beautiful daughter Kim and some from his other spiritual and emotional life experiences.