Album Notes

Sometimes the gift is needed...

The discovery of just how wonderful music is, the joy of singing and the goose bumps you find in a great song came to me in Fairbanks Elementary's 6th grade. Later, in a New Orleans high school, I was given an old guitar. I learned to play by begging/annoying friends into teaching me one chord at a time.
I was influenced by Crosby, Stills & Nash, Neil Young, The Beatles, Joni Mitchell and Simon & Garfunkle. I spent evenings over the levee on the banks of the Mississippi River, parked on the hood of a car, listening to Motown on a scratchy AM radio, watching Otis Redding's ships roll in.
I found Aaron Copeland, Charles Ives and Bach. I found Cream, Santana, Blind Faith, Moody Blues, Mountain, Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, Iron Butterfly and a ton of other music.
There was Woodstock, Big Sur, and the Concert for Bangladesh. It was the message that we must see to each other and be a community with healing as its goal... It all formed and excited and brought me to places in my soul, ways of thinking I never thought about before. It just plain spoke to me and it spoke for me and it moved me finally to speak for myself. I began to write songs born out of all that experience.

I continued writing and performing into adulthood until life presented its own challenges to be husband and daddy. I struggled to maintain the balance of the dream and the job. I began to drive a city bus and the dream moved to the back burner and finally off the stove. The job had won, the dream fell to slumber. Years passed and, with the ecouragement of my wife, Sindy, and the friends who surrounded me, I decided to launch out again and chance the dream.

Sometimes the gift is given...

We were all there that night, sitting around the dining room table, enjoying my wife's cheesecake and drinking good coffee. I was saying that I had started to look for opportunities to share my music again. The purpose and desire to write and perform again was and had always been to entertain and speak to the heart. It was about the listener coming to a place where they might make a better choice for themselves or for someone else.

Then talk turned to a CD.

That's when it happened. Someone said they could put the graphics together. Someone else offered to set up the studio I could record in. It was a moment when you realize that stepping off will gather support from those who believe in you. Like the story of Stone Soup they began to come alongside to help. They invested their time, treasure and talent to bring this CD alive. The dream had begun to move.

A digital photographer, legal and financial help followed.

When the songs were recorded they returned, each to listen, alone to themselves. Faith was confirmed.

And so, this has not been about me, but about us. We present this CD to you and hope you agree with us as to its worth. We promise to honor the gift of your purchase and are already looking forward to producing more of the same.

Carl Faddis