The Six String Cafe has been closed since fall of 2005, so I'm not able to perform there anymore. For a while I was performing at Pheasant Creek Coffee in Apex, NC, where the proprietor Geoff Corey served the areas best independent coffee, but Pheasant Creek also closed in early 2008. I was also performing at Borders Books and Music throughout the Raleigh/Durham area.
He was right, and towards the end of 2008 I got married to the love of my life. I plan to start playing in public again in the summer of 2009, and start work on my album again.
Most of these recordings are what I'd consider to be scratch recordings-- made primarily to preserve a song idea, or shortly after the inspiration. If you want a short sample, the most-requested song I have is "School of Life", followed by "The Jewelry Box".
If you want to contact me, please send me an email. If you don't hear from me (I'm usually very quick to respond), try again from another address in case the aggressive spam filter blocked your message, or better yet, contact me through MySpace.
Ain't much here yet, but more to come... Enjoy!
Also
recorded on my Minidisc, shortly after I wrote the song. Another
rough recording, preserved shortly after the song was inspired, recorded as I sat
on the floor next to my couch trying to finalize the melody.
This one is now a trademark song, and I find it surprising that I continue to get so many requests
to sing this. I have had more requests to sing this song than any other song I've written. I've know people who burst into tears after hearing the MP3, so if you're an emotional person, you've been warned. Well, most of my songs are emotional.
I remember distinctly the moment of passing, because I received an urgent cell phone call that the doctors were saying she was critical. I was at church on a Sunday, and I stepped outside to pray on a picnic bench for the family. For about half-an-hour, I prayed and pleaded and wept. A deep sense of sadness and mourning weighed on my spirit. Abruptly and suddenly, at 4:30pm the sadness left me, like unconsciousness fleeing a sleeping person who is shocked awake. I opened my eyes, the tears stopped immediately, and I knew that there was no more need to pray. I wasn't sure why, though. Part of me hoped that she had made it through the critical moment, and would be with us a little longer.
It was almost 24 hours before I got an update through another friend. I learned that at that moment on Sunday afternoon, she had passed away with her family gathered around her bed. A phrase began to nag me incessantly in the back of my mind... "passed from death to life." I didn't know where it came from, but it wouldn't go away. Surprisingly, it showed up in a bible reading shortly thereafter, and I realized it was a quote from the book of John.
Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life. - John 5:24 (New King James)
I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. - John 5:24 (New International Version)
I sent that verse to one of my friends in a short encouraging email, and she used it when she got up to speak at the memorial service.
The week before the memorial service, I sat down at the keyboard and wrote the melody and most of the song. The song just came pouring out on the piano keys. I tried to write a bridge to complete the song, but just couldn't do it. For some reason, it felt very... incomplete. Or just... not ready.
For four years, it frustrated me. Periodically I'd pull this song out and try to write that elusive bridge. I was never satisfied with the alternate bridges I wrote. And since it was incomplete, I never mentioned it even to my friends whom I had written it for. In retrospect, I think that its time hadn't come, and it was simply not ready to be sung.
The summer of 2003, I started to perform at the Open Mike Nights at the Six String Cafe. The second week I ever played at the Six String Cafe, some crazy events started to happen that had a major impact on my life, mainly involving a friend I met at the Six String (see archived posts on my web log). As part of this, I got in touch with an old high school friend who was in Nashville, and found her in the middle of struggling with the sudden death of a dear friend.
If there was ever a time for this song to emerge from its exile, that was the time. It weighed on me such that when I woke up the next morning, I sat down at the keyboard, recorded a quick take of the piano and vocals, burned them to a CD, and sent it via overnight mail to Nashville on my way in to work. It was recorded as-is, without a bridge, in its original wording and structure. After listening to the demo recording, the revelation came that it did not need a bridge after all, and that the song was already complete.
Within the next day or two, I showed up at the doorstep
of one of my old friends, and delivered a copy of the CD
along with the lyrics. "I wrote this song for your mom
several years ago, but I never told you about it because
for four years I've been trying to write the final piece..."
A rough recording like the rest on the site, but it
captures the meaning and the inspiration.
I recorded this immediately after finishing the song. My voice wavers, I start coughing partway through the song, I can't hit all my high notes, allergies are acting up, and I'm recovering from the flu and a respiratory infection. But I hope you can hear the heart of the song through the raw recording.
The lyrics are up on my blog if you want to read them...