Background
McConnell was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1963. By age four he was learning to play the piano, and when his family relocated to Basking Ridge, New Jersey, in 1969 he continued his musical studies, eventually playing in bands with friends by his seventh grade. His father, Dr. Jack B. McConnell, worked at McNeil Laboratories and helped to develop Tylenol and the MRI. The elder McConnell then started a free health clinic for kids that was staffed by retired health workers in Hilton Head, South Carolina.
McConnell spent a year at Gill St. Bernard's School, in Gladstone, New Jersey before moving away. McConnell spent his senior year of high school at Lawrence Academy at Groton, in Groton, Massachusetts, and then attended Southern Methodist University from Fall 1982 to Spring 1984, where he joined Kappa Alpha Order. McConnell transferred to Goddard College that fall and graduated in December 1987. This is where he met his mentor, Karl Boyle, and wrote his senior study, The Art of Improvisation under Boyle's guidance.
McConnell joined Phish in 1985 and played with the band for the first time on May 3 of that year. McConnell has written a number of Phish originals including "Cars Trucks Buses," "Magilla," "Army of One," "I Been Around," "Windy City," and "If I Told You." He has also coauthored numerous other songs with the band.
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