I have always loved soundtrack music and instrumental music. One day soon I will re-record the piano pieces and get them mixed properly. I especially love string instruments as can be found in the 3 synth-based string tunes here. Fan Fare stems from youthful imagination. The wedding piece, The Promise Aisle, was composed for my nephew’s wedding celebration in a faraway land. I would love to hear this performed by an orchestra as imagined by me. Album cover art and design were created by my wife Lilo.

These tunes are from the 1980s, it is fun for me to hear them again. Later I will be releasing more albums from this era, I recorded a whole bunch of them. My good friend Robert Thornburn helped me tremendously during that time, using his knowledge as a musician and engineer, all on the shoestring budget I had. Robert is a gifted guitarist and has been one of the strongest supporters of my music, even still. My friend DP contributed with her lyrics on a few tunes and my biggest supporter of all, my wife Lilo re-created the album cover design which used to be a distorted photo of a Tascam 8-track 1/2″ tape machine into the new “From The Vault” design.

I enjoyed working with my friend Doraine Poretz, blending her poems with my music. Here too my friend Robert Thornburn recorded live to DAT two track in his living room in the early 1990’s. Another friend, Joe Puerta added some of his bass finesse to three of the tunes, Listen, The Wording & Longing. I was glad that Joe jumped in there very impromptu, we had a lot of fun. Never owning a DAT machine, I borrowed one just recently, this old machine was very hard to come by these days. Finally I could transfer the recordings to my new iMac. Some of the tape was damaged but I managed to salvage most of it.

What is life without mom and a slice of apple pie, right? Even if I don’t remember my mother ever making an apple pie, the memory of her leaves me with gratitude of having felt and known her real spirit. It all started when my niece sent us a copy of a cowboy movie, Land of the Lawless, in which mom had a part, acting and singing. I knew that mom was in the movie business during the 1940’s but that’s about all I knew. Now wondering about her life before she decided to become a full-time mother and wife, I asked  my sister if she knew of any recordings mom had done. She eventually dug up a bunch of very old recordings that were buried under a mountain of other stuff in her garage. I found someone in my neighborhood that the technology and could play these old albums and transfer them to his computer. He literally had to hold his hand on the needle arm to support it going through scratches in the albums. This was the first time in my life that I got to hear these recordings. My loving wife put much hard work into the project, fixing old photos, doing design and layout, I am forever grateful to have such a partner.