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Songwriting and Paying it Forward!



It was nearing the end of the 2022 holiday season and we finished our set at Deep Sea Wine Tasting in Santa Barbara. This location is my favorite place to do gigs because of the location atmosphere and the supportive staff. One of the owners at Deep Sea is Gillian. She has always been a great with me performing for them. It was our last gig of the year and afterward Gillian came up to me and asked if I wrote songs. She noticed we sing a lot of covers but I let her know that writing songs is how I started on my music journey. I actually have experience writing a few hundred songs if you include the unfinished songs in various notebooks. Gillian let me know she wanted to finish a song she had started about 10 years ago about a breakup she had. She originally requested help with just the bridge and we ended up helping her format the song a bit more and organize it to record.


Thankfully we were able to get Jeff in his studio in Tarzana to take on recording and mixing the track. I think Gillian was really excited about the changes I added, and the opportunity to record this song.


Since 2023 started off with some funky weather, it took a little longer than expected to get everyone together for the final recording, including Lauren who had joined us as a marketing assistant for a period in 2023, but we finally worked it out. We laid down my guitar, Todd’s bass, and Jeff's percussion and then Gillian added her amazing vocals.


That recording came out great even though we felt we still need to do Gillian’s ukulele part instead of the draft guitar and more harmonies. But she was quite happy and said it “was so much fun and such a dream for [her] to record that song”.



I really appreciate Gillian and her experience taught her about the creative process. She said “I keep thinking how much respect I have for recording artists after that experience. It’s one thing to write a song and sing it alone in your house but it’s a completely different story to get in front of a mic and actually record something”.

In this experience I attained one of goals; to find ways to help songwriters and mentor where and if I can. This was also a way to thank her for facilitating one of my favorite gigs in California.




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