"A Song Is Born"

When I started listening to music five decades ago, the 12-inch vinyl record album (LP) was the industry standard for music distribution. The format provided a generous canvas for artwork photos and lyrics. Occasionally the artist or producer would include "liner notes" on the inside cover or record sleeve of the album. Liner notes were interesting to read because they typically offered a behind the scenes look at how the album was recorded and produced. 

The making of this album is a fascinating story. As a songwriter and producer, what makes Legacy special is the way it all came together. Of the eleven songs,  "Greater Things" was the only one recorded with a band and vocalists together in the same recording studio. All other tracks were recorded remotely by professional musicians from around the world - Columbia, Argentina, Nashville, London, Nigeria, Turkey and Spain. The tracks were then mixed and mastered in Oakland, CA. Here's how digital technology made this album possible.

One of my favorite songs, "To Be Here" is very meaningful to me because the lyrics combine imagery from Isaiah 40 and Psalm 103 two of my favorite passages in the Bible. After writing the lyrics, I recorded a rough vocal demo on a smartphone sitting in the front seat of my car. I sent the recording to my keyboard player Dmitro Sartsev in Ukraine. Dmitro recorded a beautiful piano track in his home studio.  I forwarded his track to my upright bass player Pere Bujosa in Palma de Mallorca Spain. I edited the two tracks together then forwarded the song file to violinist Julia Stein in London. Julia recorded a lovely violin track. I brought the three recorded tracks to my sound engineer Nate Hendrix at 25th Street Recording in Oakland. There we record Lauren Zepeda's stunning vocal track and added it to the mix. In less than sixty days from inception, a song was born.