Album Notes

17 days. We’d worked together for a total of 17 days when Art Wachter brought his recording equipment over to Claudia’s place in Baltimore. It was December 2005. We’d met by chance that summer at a jam session in a tiny Dutch pub. Randall was traveling across Europe on his sailboat and happened to be passing through; Claudia was spending the summer in The Netherlands. A musical spark caught tinder — we sang, played and laughed for five solid days.

A month later, we met up in the south of France and gave our first joint performance on a Corbières hillside with the wind in the trees and six zillion stars overhead. Three months and three thousand miles later, we were recording our songs together. It was freezing cold outside. Art listened patiently, sipped tea, and turned knobs. We recorded 17 first takes — none of them perfect, but all with a bit of the magic that we’ve found in making music together. We put our favorites on this CD. Thanks for sharing.

~ Randall & Claudia


Randall and Claudia are two internationally active singer/songwriters with independent careers. On this debut collaborative CD “First Takes” they deliver quiet acoustic ballads and stories born from lives of travel, living strong and loving true. Their strong voices and textured guitars speak to the beauty of human warmth and kindness. Claudia’s song “Spell of Memories," an upbeat ballad about remembering first love, is an example of their exquisite blending of styles.

Claudia’s solid guitar work provides a strong anchor for her gentle vocals. She naturally fuses her jazz influence with alternate tunings, which give her songs like “Love’s Lost” a glow to match the warm lyrics and easy melodies. Randall’s own songs range from ballads like “War Stories” a quiet reflection of friendship and travel, to the edgy “Draw the Line” with its strong right hand guitar percussion.