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Waiting for the Light to Change

Released in 2006, this album yields a rich collection of songs charting previously untold depths unexplored in my previous efforts. Gritty, honest and in some cases irreverent, these songs I wrote and recorded because I needed to record them. There are still a couple of unflinchingly optimistic songs which you have come to expect from me, but I believe these are harder earned and hopefully a bit wiser.

One strikingly different thing about this recording is that the core of the record is just me in my basement with a microphone and some ideas. I did most of the recording myself. Gerry Hanson contributed some truly amazing drums to six of the tracks, while Kris Dale handled the bass on the entire record. My old friend Tom Willner contributed his voice and keyboards and Kristian Bush was kind enough to take time out of his crazy touring schedule to lay down a vocal and a mandolin track on "Blue Ridge."

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Greener - with Screen Door

Released in 2003, this recording was the result of a longtime collaboration with my good friend Tom Willner whom I first met at my first "straight job." We would take long lunch breaks and jam at his house. Eventually these turned into gigs where he would accompany me and it grew into a co-bill and finally when we added drummer, Chris Kearney, it became the band Screen Door.

We recorded the entire thing ourselves between Kristian Bush's Projector Room studio, my basement and Tom's living room. Troy Bieser of Telegram assisted on some of the early tracking. Paste Records put the CD out for us and we enjoyed some good reviews. It's a very diverse record given the wide range of influences covered between Tom and myself. I think my favorite moment on the record is "No One To Hold." Tom and I tracked that late one night in the Projector Room. We were just in a zone singing together. I plunked around on one of Kristian's soon to be famous Sugarland mandolins and we captured something really right.

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The Overall Distance

Released in 1999, this record was a huge step beyond anything I thought I could ever put out there thanks to the production work of Ric Hordinski. We recording most of it over the course of 4 days in Cincinnati at his home studio. A lot of cool things happened around the recording of this record. The brilliant photographer Michael Wilson who is best known for his photos of artists like Lyle Lovette, B.B. King and others dropped by one afternoon and took pictures, one of which made the cover. That one photograph really captures the deep longing that inspired the title track.

I convinced a lot of brilliant musicians to lend their talents to the recording which was an amazing show of generocity on their part since I could pay them next to nothing. David LaBruyere who now plays with John Mayer played bass on the entire record. Shawn Mullins sings backing vocals on "The Best Time" and Kristian Bush of Sugarland helped out on "Resonate" and "Running Against Myself". Brandon Bush, now the keyboard player in Train generously played on most of the record even though I could only afford three songs at the time.

I wrote some really solid songs for this record, many of which still find their way into my set lists today. I think the songs are very honest and capture what I was going through at the time which is all you can ever hope for. I look back and feel blessed to have had the experience of playing with so many talented people.

Storm Windows

Released in 1995, this was my first "professional" effort. Up until this CD I had done a lot of demo recordings, but never done an official shrink-wrapped release. Like most artists, I have trouble listening to my early recordings because it's a bit like going back and reading the diary you kept when you were in seventh grade.

There is an innocent and open quality to the songs and the way they were captured. I think I hung on to my idealism concerning music a bit longer than most folks and I'm proud of that. The CD was recording in the basement of a guy named David Truran and most nights it was just he and I doing the tracking. Other folks were brought in for some tracks including Shawn Mullins, Ray Chesna, Nance Petit and the late Freyda Epstein.