Faris Herbert Harton was born in Asheville, NC, on 3 December 1947. His parents had traveled from their Rutherford County home to Asheville because his mother had a very difficult delivery with Faris’s older brother. Once discharged from the hospital, they brought him home to Spindale, where he
grew up.

Faris was five years old when his mother lobbied and enrolled him in the county boys choir. The director of the choir was a graduate of Juilliard School of Music. Faris stayed in the choir till he was 12 years old. He started life with a foundation in music.

Faris attended Spindale Elementary School and then Rutherfordton/Spindale Central High School. He was 12years old when he first laid eyes on a real guitar and was immediately in love with the instrument. At 14, he received his first guitar, a $15.00 Sears and Roebuck Silvertone acoustic. Faris had to scrounge to get other older players to show him instruction on how to play the guitar. He, in turn, infected his friends and taught them how to play.

After graduating high school in 1966, Faris was drafted into the US Army and spent part of 1968 and 1969 stationed in the II Corps area of Vietnam in the city of Pleiku. He went into the army a “mama's boy” and came home a drastically changed man at the end of 1969.

In 1970, Faris started working freelance in the Motion Picture Industry while attending college. During this time, he continued to give instruction on the instrument to friends.

In 1985, after getting married for the second time, he and his wife, Annette, moved to Wilmington for Faris to work on his first film feature. In 1998, Faris began teaching guitar at the Southport campus of Brunswick County Community College. He taught year-round for 8 years until a replacement was made when he required heart surgery and was not able to fulfill the contract terms.

Now at almost 78 years old, he is excited to be giving the therapeutic, inspiring, and magic of music to fellow veterans. His volunteer efforts with fellow veterans gives him purpose for living.