Album Notes

Hersey (born John Michael Runowicz, May 7,1962, Oxford, New Jersey) started his musical career in the late 1970s as lead singer and guitarist in Shale, a rock/top 40 cover band that eventually moved on to performing new wave style original songs on the New Jersey college circuit.

In 1983 Shale disbanded and Hersey moved to New York City where he sang his tunes in the folk clubs of Greenwich Village while working on a degree in music composition at New York University. Upon graduation, he tried his hand at classical guitar but eventually returned to his rock and roll roots. By the end of the 80s he was playing guitar with New York garage band Love Planet Janet. When that group broke up in the early 90s, he had a one year stint with Liquid Scintillation Cocktail, a group led by Barry Smith of Ice Nine fame.

Meanwhile, since 1987 Hersey had been working steadily with legendary rhythm and blues vocal group Speedo and the Cadillacs. He started out as their guitarist and eventually became second tenor and musical director as well. And all the while Hersey had been writing songs and doing a few scattered solo gigs. Then in 1995, he released a solo acoustic album called “Bare Bones” and returned to the NYC club circuit in earnest with his own band.

In 1999 he founded Chordophone Records and released “Soup Du Jour” which Good Times Magazine called “a strongly eclectic and seamless collection.” (He has subsequently re-released all his recordings previous to this one on Chordophone as well.) In 2003 he released “Whirligig.” In reviewing this record, independisc.com drew comparisons to “Elvis Costello as well as East Side Story era Chris Difford/Glenn Tilbrook, Robyn Hitchcock, Ron Sexsmith … and mid-70s troubadour Bob Dylan – to name a few.”

On November 1, 2004 Chordophone Records released the new Speedo and the Cadillacs album “Mr. Lucky,” a CD that Hersey co-produced, and for which he wrote the songs, played guitar and sang. The record, which has been receiving consistent airplay on several doo-wop radio programs, garnered these words from destinationdoowop.com: “Got the new CD – it’s terrific! I love the new material. You just don’t see that very often with doo-wop and oldies groups.”

In addition, in January of 2006 Hersey (masquerading as John Michael Runowicz) completed a PHD in ethnomusicology at New York University. The title of his dissertation is “Echo and Harmony: Race, Nostalgia and the doo-wop/oldies community.”

On September 15, 2007 Hersey released a new CD of original material entitled "How Am I Here?" - a fresh collection of lyrical and expressive roots rock with a contemporary sensibility.