Hello dear readers, I’m pleased to announce the birth of my new album Dream of You, featuring nine of my original songs for guitar, piano, and voice. One of these tunes was written forty-eight years ago, and two were written in the last year. The primary guitar tracks and vocals were recorded simultaneously to give the songs a live feeling, with Marcia’s gorgeous cello and Gwyneth Moreland’s splendid vocal harmonies adding magic to the mix.
You can buy copies of Dream of You from my web site for 5 dollars each, plus a flat rate shipping fee of 6 dollars no matter how much stuff you buy from my web site, or you can download the whole album for 6 dollars from CD Baby, or download individual songs from CD Baby for just 69 cents per song. Such a deal!
The album is also available for downloading and streaming from iTunes and Amazon and Spotify and Apple Music. Or you can listen to the songs on YouTube. If you do take a listen and enjoy what you hear, I hope you’ll share this article and links with your music-loving friends.
I’m now at work on a new batch of songs inspired by the satisfying creative experience of working with Marcia and Gwyneth and Peter Temple in his Albion studio.
Here are some brief notes about the songs on Dream of You.
Wake Up Thinking About You
Written thirty years ago as a slow smoky blues, I never got around to recording this tune until now. When I was learning the song again for this album, I sped up the tempo, added some swing, some piano, some Gwyneth harmony, and I love the joyous feel.
Strange Confusion
This song is twenty years old. I’ve long imagined harmony parts and was thrilled when we got them all in place. I sang two additional vocal tracks, Gwyneth sang two, too, and I love how groovy the song feels now.
Dream of You
This is the newest tune on the album, composed a few months before we recorded the initial guitar and vocal track. After a ten-year break from playing the guitar to focus on my piano playing, this recounting of a lucid dream was the first new song to come to me as I was regaining my guitar chops.
Alone and Lonely
I wrote this song almost fifty years ago. A vagabond in those days, I spent hundreds of hours standing by the sides of roads hitchhiking. This tune was born in those long hours of playing guitar while waiting for a ride and hoping for happier times.
Nothing Anybody Says
This is my newest piano tune, written within the last year. I imagined singing this love song with a fine female vocalist, and Gwyneth surpassed my imaginings.
Whole Lotta Kissing
I wrote this tune in Berkeley, circa 2000, following a painful dismissal by a woman who clearly (erroneously) thought she was too good for the likes of me.
Hey Baby
I was broke and lonely and pining for an old love when I wrote this song in Seattle in 1977. I imagined Bonnie Raitt singing this song, and over the ensuing twenty years I tried to get it to her without success. This song also forms the basis for my novel Night Train.
Agnes June
I wrote the words for this song in 1970 in New York City. A young German composer asked me to write lyrics for operatic lieder, and this was my favorite of the several poems I created for him, none of which he used. I found the lyrics in my guitar case some years later and put them to music. Gwyneth’s beautiful harmonies thrill me every time I listen to this song.
One Last Time
I wrote this song in Sacramento in 1989 and first performed it in an art gallery as part of a two-man show with the fine poet and artist D.R. Wagner. A song of resurrection and the healing power of love.