Award-winning guitarist, songwriter, singer, composer, producer, radio and TV personality, music columnist, educator, and sound engineer. He was featured on a Christmas song that came out last month and was also featured on a single that was released in July. He is the subject of a mini-documentary that came out a year-and-a-half ago that talks about his blindness and other medical challenges and his perseverance in life and music. He recently toured the UK and will be releasing a new album in 2023. He also mentions here about owning a commercial recording facility and building a new space that will be ready around 2024. He was a guest on this show approximately three years ago, back on Episode 310.
“It’s not often that your artistic vision is fully realized in a song.”
“I think as we get… further in our journey as artists we start being able to tap into our authentic selves a little bit easier.”
“I always leave a little room for improvisation and for accidental magic to happen.”
“The bulk of my living is made as a producer and recording engineer and session musician. That’s probably, I don’t know, sixty percent of what I do. And I own a commercial recording facility.”
“In MY mind a producer is someone that helps you make budgetary decisions. A producer is someone that helps you – to a limited degree – have a plan for after the record is over… And then, a producer, of course, makes a lot of musical decisions. The producer chooses the session musicians and chooses the kind of tone that you’re going to have for the record… The producer helps the artist get a good vocal take.”
“I recommend to everyone, if you’ve got a musician with a good pedigree (performing) on your record, list them as a featured artist. I think that’s a really smart decision.”
“It really is about leveraging what you have now to get what you want later.”
“It honestly is a real blessing and a real sign of achievement if you can be a musician full-time – if you can be an artist full-time.”
“I have a philosophy about touring. And I believe in this sort of hub and spoke mentality. So, I like to go into an area for at least a week and really just take over that area. When I say an area, usually it means about a 30–60-mile radius. And I find a central location where I need to go and then sort of branch out all around that location.”
“When I go do a show, I intend for you to be my fan after I’m done. That is my only goal. My goal is to show you that I have something to make your day just a little bit better. I absolutely am dead set on giving you a night that you’ll remember.”
“I do a lot of masterclasses. I do a lot of masterclasses on branding, and I do masterclasses on improvisation. I do masterclasses on voice. I do masterclasses on music technology and all the different facets of that.”
“I am a brain tumor survivor and that has left me with a number of difficult challenges. Not being able to see is perhaps the most obvious, but I have no endocrine system, so I have no thyroid gland, I have no adrenal function… It’s vexing, but I am alive, and I am mostly doing what I want to do when I want to do it, not a hundred percent, but close, and I’ll take it… So, the pandemic had very real, life-threatening issues for me.”
“I like to tell stories of adversity so that you can see the triumph. That’s the goal, (it) is not to say, ‘Isn’t life hard,’ but it’s to say, even when it is hard, we can thrive.”
“Music is a natural extension of my spirit. I don’t do music. It is a requirement of me that I create that art. That is what my spirit needs to thrive. That’s what I have to do to be whole and to be my authentic self. So, it’s not a vocation or even a career.”
“I wanna leave the world a little better than I found it. And I’m willing to do it one person at a time, and one song at a time.”
“You Know My Name”
“One Song at a Time”