I suppose after playing on thousands of recordings by other artists I should have been satisfied with that, but no I had to go and make a record for myself. What’s it like? Well, I grew up at a time when instrumentals were a regular part of pop music play lists all over the world. Yeah, hit instrumentals that charted and sold millions of records! Things like Stranger On The Shore, Last Date, Swingin’ Safari, Cast Your Fate To The Wind, Route 66, Alley Cat, Theme From A Summer Place, so many more and that’s just from the 1960’s! I really missed melodies that you could hum or whistle after you’d heard the record.
With that in mind, I started fooling around writing some tunes of my own with the emphasis on strong melodies. After I had a stack of about 30 things I began narrowing it down to what I felt were the best dozen, played them with as much dignity and tone as I could muster and here you have it. Click on any or all of the songs for a sample of each and you’ll see what I mean. Big, thematic instrumentals. I had some serious help from the best players and guys in the world, Chad Cromwell and Glenn Worf who I work with in the studios as well as in Mark Knopfler’s band, Garry Tallent from Bruce Springsteen’s E-Street Band, Phil Lee and Paul Burch, both gifted artists and songwriters with records of their own. Al Casey, my friend, mentor and legendary L.A. studio guitar hero played the ‘beguine’ rhythm guitar on Dinamico and you can read more about him in the bio link. Reese Wynans and Dave Hoffner played keys and the multi-talented, ever patient George Bradfute engineered, mixed and played a variety of guitars and bass throughout. This record was recorded very ‘live’, by that I mean a minimum of overdubbing and no computers or click tracks were used. We gathered in Bradfute’s Tone Chaparral Studio, learned the songs and went for the best performances and feel.
I hope there will be something you can hum or whistle after you’ve heard the record.