I’ve been a musician of one kind or another since age 8, as a clarinetist, keyboardist and lead singer in a cover band, and intermittent classical piano student. Like so many of my generation, the singer-songwriters of the 60s and 70s were a major focus of my world.  I wrote and recorded some terrible songs at college in Iowa (“Flowers of Evil,” the product of a brief Baudelaire infatuation, comes to mind). Shortly after arriving in NYC at age 21, and taking courses in harmony, counterpoint, etc., I joined a songwriting workshop, which generated some fun but ultimately forgettable numbers like “Kundalini Love” and co-writes like “You Make it So Hard” (alas, double-entendre very much intended by my co-writer). Then a business career re-channeled a lot of my creative energies.

The real turning point came in the early ‘aughts’ at a weekend workshop, “The Natural Voice,” at the Omega Institute in upstate New York. I came with nothing more in mind than a weekend of singing in a beautiful country setting. After a round of self-introductions, the leader, Claude Stein, asked me how long it had been since I’d written a song, and I answered, “about 25 years.”  To my continuing gratitude, he urged me to “write a song tonight…call it…’Better Late Than Never.’”  I wrote the music and lyrics that night in my cabin. It turned out to be a meaningful song for my fellow workshop participants, all of a certain age and looking for “next chapters.”  

That experience convinced me I had “a gift that’s meant to give today.”  Continuing to write (including at other workshops in Costa Rica and Umbria) led to a resumption of live performances, especially at the encouragement of Jeannine Otis, the musical director of St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery.  And “Better Late Than Never” became the title song of my first real cabaret show in New York and the concluding song of the album “21st Century Blues” that followed - produced, arranged, and musical directed by the dear departed Rick Jensen. Also during that time, I met songwriting coach Tony Conniff, a valued mentor ever since.

Time passed, and I continued building a catalog and sharing it during the pandemic via posted videos, live Zoom performances, and a recorded evening at Urban Stages dedicated to my music. And the more I wrote, the more songwriting began to feel like a real calling. With a move to LA in 2021, I found a supportive community of singers and musicians, providing the motivation of regular open-mic tryouts of songs-in-progress, and the opportunity to work with producer-arranger-engineer-guitarist Dori Amarilio on the new album, “Crazy That Way,”  that is nearing completion. My songwriting has continued to benefit from the guidance and feedback of Dori, Mark Winkler, Cathy Segal-Garcia, my colleagues in the semi-monthly online meetings of Tom Toce's New York Songwriters Alliance, Tony, and my friends and fellow singers, writers and musicians in the LA community.

That’s, in brief, the story up to now.  I’ll probably expand on some of this history in future posts, and – I hope – narrate my progress in creating ever-more-ambitious and well-crafted tunes.  Thanks for reading, and, of course, for your comments!