In 1983, while attending the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, I was on a deep dive exploring the sounds and textures of music composition. Surrounded by an array of analog synths, sequencers and drums machines, my tiny dorm room was crowded with Oberheim, Sequential Circuits and Yamaha electronics. My Teac A440 4 track reel-to-reel tape machine was always ready to capture my ideas as quickly as they surfaced.
It was somewhere during that time that the song "Dreaming" was conceived. Upon graduation in 1985, I went into 41B Recorders, a well known LA area 48 track recording studio and recorded "Dreaming" on a grander scale. At the urging of my college roommate, I entered the song in The American Collegiate Showcase, a live competition that discovered comic Sinbad and others. (think America's Got Talent).
I made it to the national finals, held in Los Angeles, CA and, in front of a live audience, host Mary Hart and judges, that included Ned Beatty and Jerry Mathers, won the title "College Entertainer of the Year" in 1986.
"Dreaming" was pressed into a handful of vinyl records for promotion, but because of the demand for my services as a singer, keyboardist and synthesist, my solo career was put on hold. I hit the road as a sideman on world-wide tours with major acts like Chicago, Al Jarreau, James Ingram, Christopher Cross and Tracy Chapman. Seven years passed before I went back into the studio to record my first full length CD "Red". The "Dreaming" 45s and all the other songs I wrote during college went into a box for decades never to be listened to again... until now.
Earlier this year, a vinyl 45 of "Dreaming" surfaced in a record store where it was discovered by a rep from the Numero Group, a record label that specializes in finding quality unreleased music from the 60s, 70s and 80s. They loved the rich analog sounds and electronic production of "Dreaming" and immediately recognized it as an 80s gem. We signed a licensing deal for "Dreaming", as well several more of my songs from that era, to be released over the coming months. It's thrilling to be "re-discovered" and I couldn't be happier to present these beautiful songs to the world almost 40 years later.
