Album Notes

“To have a great idea, have a lot of them.”
Thus spake Thomas Edison, inventor of wax paper and the phonograph record. The man could have been describing Ben Vaughn, who’s had a lot of ideas, most of them musical, a lot of them great. Since 1985, the slim frame of Vaughn has entered many a recording studio door (including the driver’s side of his ’65 Rambler). What emerged has been a legion of songs on loads of albums. Songs that people loved, songs that people covered, countless classics-in-hiding. Some folks heard them, some didn’t.
But Vaughn the songwriter—longtime dealer in pop gems—has perhaps been overshadowed by Vaughn the composer, creator of instrumental scores for big time network television shows heard by millions.
In the last couple decades, things have changed much for mankind, for music, and too for Vaughn: The humble Jersey tunesmith has thrived in the devil’s mart of Hollywood. He’s traded his East Coast walk-up for a discreet pad in the desert. He drives a used truck instead of a used car. Yet his knack for making melodies and lyrics that are as perfect and simple as a good cheeseburger or a bad broken heart has changed not a bit
This magical silver disc represents exactly that. It’s the first in a series of albums that will offer the complete and utter cataloguing of all songs Vaughn, some from the past, some spanking new, the entire magnificent batch recorded live in the studio with his deft and righteous backing group, the Desert Classic.
Thanks to Mr. Edison, you may now hear Vaughn singing Vaughn and the proof is in the grooves. Or laser etches. The shiny stuff. In any case, it is the first of many.
Here’s looking forward to those future volumes.

- Peter Gilstrap, Los Angeles - February ‘06