Beth's first performance on piano was in kindergarten in Oakland when she played a simple tune for her class performance of "Sleeping Beauty." In the garage of her childhood friend's parents' house in Castro Valley there was an old upright piano. The two girls would spend many an afternoon banging out the classic duet "Heart and Soul" and dueling over how fast they could play "Chopsticks." Beth first began piano lessons at eight. She saw The Beatles last live performance at Candlestick Park in San Francisco when she was eleven. Her family moved to Monterey, California in 1967. The day she arrived in her new hometown, her older brother took her to the Sunday night performance at the Monterey Pop Festival where she saw Jimi Hendrix play and burn his guitar.

While a high school student, Beth studied piano privately and learned to play the guitar from friends. She took a photography class and began her love affair with images caught on film. A rabid concert attendee, she, her brother and her friends would regularly drive to San Francisco to attend shows at the old Fillmore, Fillmore West, Avalon and Winterland venues. In 1975, she saw Chick Corea and Return to Forever in Santa Cruz and became interested in jazz music. At Monterey Peninsula College she majored in music and became further immersed in jazz through the fine program offered at the junior college.

While her goal to be a performing musician never came to fruition, mainly due to shyness and the resultant reluctance to play in front of an audience, her love of music never dwindled. A passion for the sport of tennis ruled her life for the majority of her twenties and thirties. Marriage focused her energies within the union. When the marriage dissolved, she returned to college to study journalism and received her Bachelor's Degree from San Diego State University in 1991.

An internship at a Monterey Peninsula alternative weekly evolved into a position as a music writer. She began to photograph music performance at Monterey's two premier festivals, the Monterey Jazz Festival and the Monterey Bay Blues Festival. Work in Public Relations and Advertising at a local bookstore was supplemented with picture framing, freelance writing and photography work. Injuries sidelined her sports and framing activities. Jazz became her main focus.

Since 1996 she has been a music columnist and feature writer for newspapers on the Monterey Peninsula. Currently she writes for the Monterey County Herald (covering jazz and pop music in the Santa Cruz area and greater Bay Area), JazzWest.com, and regional magazines. Beth continues to photograph musicians and scenes from Mexico where she visits her brother in the small coastal village of Sayulita. In addition, for the past three years she has hosted a jazz radio program titled "On The Beat" on Carmel's KRML Jazz and Blues Radio station and is the Artistic Director for the Big Sur Jazz Festival.