Album Notes

I've always loved the Christmas Carols I grew up singing, but on many radio stations and music outlets, the songs seemed to be over-produced, with huge choirs and lots of orchestral overtones, or silly renditions that I took serious. I wanted a simple melody, picked out on the guitar, and a couple of voices, to bring out what it sounded like in our living room at Christmas. I started picking out the melodies several years ago, but didn't get the tunes worked out for quite a while. Then, when I met Mary Beth Sims, and she was willing to be my accomplice, I thought "OK. We can proceed." It took us three years of on and off working on this to get to this point.

I am pleased with the end result, and find that I like to play it off and on during the day during the Christmas Season. We recently played at a local Salinas Art Walk event in down town Salinas and the people responded with nodding heads, lips, moving with the words and smiles on their faces. So, if you enjoy acoustic guitar, and simple melodies, I think this will take you back to some good old memories of classical home-style Christmas.

The song "Get Up Mary" is one that was a real surprise. I don't sit down and "write songs." They come to me. This song came to me as I was driving to the hardware store to get lights for the house. As I was driving along, I got this feeling that a song was coming and it was coming NOW! I took out a scrap of paper from the glove box, grabbed a pencil, and scribbled the words as I was driving. At least I wasn't on the cell phone too! By the time I got to the parking lot, the song had written itself. I came home, put the music to it, and played it a week later at a local church right before Christmas. It was such a gift. I hope you like it too.

Tis the season to be merry!