I've always believed "Stardust" to this day to be one of the most beautiful songs ever written. The legendary story of “Stardust”’s genesis goes that Hoagy Carmichael was walking around Indiana University’s campus one night in 1927, looking up at…

The best life advice I've learned recently is this. Be careful who you enter into long term relationships with. This applies to business relationships, to employment, to friendships and of course marriages. Particularly in the age we're living in now.…

The Neumann U47 has always been a dream microphone for me. It's iconic! It has been in front of so many famous voices and songs that it's very sonic signature can be recognized in the recordings. Vintage King's Los Angeles…

It was 1984. I was wrapping up my senior year of high school in Southern Cal. After years of being a less than stellar student, I managed to eke my way into Northwestern University's School of Music. My folks were…

I came up with the first eight bars on piano while visiting friends on a trip to the Midwest. After returning home I just kept adding a few bars here and there until it got 2 minutes long. Then, I…

"You're a song

a wished-for song.

Go through the ear and to the center

where sky is, where wind,

where silent knowing.

Put seeds and cover them.

Blades will sprout

where you do your work"

Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī

It was late 1973. My folks had just moved into their very first home in Shutesbury, MA. My elementary school teacher was Mrs. Nerbonne (the lady you see narrating). And I'm the little kid in the back desk with the…

What microphone is best for your voice?

Great question and as with a lot of questions, the answer tends to be "it depends".

My voice has always been on the thin and raspy side and can easily be overwhelmed by…

A good instrument will invite a player to reach outside his comfort zone. In my case with having smaller hands, it's stretching for those killer jazz chords!

So much of what informs my songwriting is based on the music my folks played for me as a child at home and in the car (8 track of course!). 

From dad came the classical stuff. One of the most…