Album Notes

I grew up near Oakland California in the 1970’s. My father was a civil servant working for the Oakland Welfare Department and my mother spent her days working part-time and donating the rest to community causes and her church.
My very first experiences with music were passive. I sat in the back of an empty church drawing on scraps of paper a couple nights a week while my mom rehearsed with the choir. She was a great singer which I later found out through some old cassette tapes of her singing solos at the church. We had an old piano in the house. It was one of those old uprights with peeling paint and a slight “lean”. Although we could not have afforded a piano (even one that leaned), we had one because the church received it as a donation but had no place to store it. We ended up “storing” it for quite a few years. My mom would sporadically play it when the mood hit her. I still remember the first time I felt the “power” of being in the presence of pure acoustic music! It’s that beautiful feeling of being able to “hear” music with your ears “and” your body; it’s beautiful!