Album Notes

Adam Book was trained classically on violin and piano from an early age while growing up in Smithtown, New York. He earned numerous awards for violin and performed in chamber ensembles, orchestras, choruses, and pit orchestras for musicals during high school and college. Adam became infatuated with 80s popular music during high school and started writing pop instrumentals on the piano in his late teens.

Adam took his first songwriting class in the spring of 1990 and tried out a ballad ("Jenny's Song") he had written for the class. His instructor, Toni Wine Moman ("Groovy Kind of Love"), was very impressed and the class called for an encore performance. It was a new beginning for Adam - the night he realized that he had the ability to write a song that could move people.

Adam's piano-based debut CD, "In These Verses," represents his growth as a songwriter over the past decade. The songs on the CD combine elements of pop, cabaret, folk, rock, and classical music. As his songs show, Adam has a knack for creating interesting melodies and producing vivid images with his lyrics. People have described his songs as being very theatrical. Indeed, some of his songs feel like they belong in Broadway musicals or movies. He hopes someday that they will be.

The title of the CD ("In These Verses") comes from the end of the chorus of the track "Brothers in Music, Sisters in Song," in which Adam sings "it's in these verses that we find where each of us belongs." The songs on the CD cover a number of universal themes - self-discovery, self-acceptance, longing, hope, love, and loss. It is up to the listener to find where he or she "belongs" in these songs. Adam's emotional outpouring of honesty in his music and verse helps the songs resonate long after the CD has ended.

Adam's influences: Late 70s country music and disco, 80s pop music (Kim Carnes, Duran Duran, Cyndi Lauper, Eurythmics, Crowded House, Lone Justice, and John Mellencamp), dance remixes of pop songs, 90s "adult alternative" music (Sarah McLachlan, Cowboy Junkies, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Rosanne Cash, Emmylou Harris, John Wesley Harding, and SONiA/disappear fear), contemporary Broadway musicals ("Rent", "Hairspray" and "Mamma Mia"), vocalists (Maureen McGovern, Barbara Streisand, and Josh Groban), and a wide variety of classical music (Paginini, Bach, and Bruch).

Of note, Steven Fischer sings lead vocals on "Jenny's Song" and Joanne Stato sings backing vocals on "Brothers in Music, Sisters in Song" on this CD. The CD was produced by Mike Zampi and Adam and was digitally recorded, mixed, and mastered by Mike Zampi at The Note Factory (www.zampi-productions.com).