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MP3 Larry Whitler - One Heart
12 MP3 Songs
POP: with Electronic Production, EASY LISTENING: Soft Rock
Details:
I’m writing my bio information myself so I hope I don’t carry on so much that I seem egotistical. I also hope I don’t try to be humble or modest to the point where I leave out anything that might actually interest you. Therefore, with the intent of being moderate, here goes…
I was born in 1955, so I’m already “over the hill.” I’ve been passionate about music all my life and about songwriting since I was about 15 or so. My father was a New York City Policeman and my mother was a homemaker and, as a child of 3, she immigrated with her parents from Germany in 1928.
I am the third of five children. Our home was on Long Island in the suburbs of New York City. We lived in the Bronx when I was born and then later in Levittown and North Merrick.
My passion for music made me bug my parents for music lessons. I had wanted piano lessons but Bolognese School of Music, which was around the corner from our home in North Merrick, taught accordion and THAT had a piano-like keyboard on one end of it so it was good enough for me. My teacher was named Carl and I learned a lot from him.
Thank you, Carl!
Learning the accordion taught me how to play accordion, of course, but more important to me was learning the keyboard which later enabled me to play piano. Learning music theory was also a very great benefit of the accordion lessons because it has served me well in all my musical endeavors.
When I discovered music radio and “top-40”, like most adolescents, (WABC, to be specific) I really was swept up by the energy and I was anxious to learn how to write songs and record them. Clearly I was influenced by The Beatles but there were others that also influenced me as well. To name a few I would include Elton John, Simon and Garfunkel, Cat Stevens, James Taylor, Carole King, Carly Simon,… and the list goes on and on.
With music theory under my belt I taught myself to play guitar, purchased a small cassette recorder, and began writing songs. In 1970 I saved up a little money and took a bus to the town of Hempstead (on Long Island) where I recorded in a studio I found listed in the Yellow Pages called Ultra-Sonic. Some big names had albums recorded there including Iron Butterfly, Janis Ian, Vanilla Fudge, and others.
I hauled an acoustic guitar, an electric guitar, and my accordion on that bus and recorded a song I wrote called “Mr. Happy Man” as a multi-track recording playing all the parts myself. There were no drums.
The engineer at Ultra-Sonic cut the record on a lathe (onto an acetate disc) and typed up a self adhesive label. I proudly brought that record home on the bus and showed it off to my family and friends.
In 1972 my family and I moved to Florida. I was 17 years old. We moved to a small town called Dunnellon. Actually we didn''t even live in town. We lived north of town in a suburb of Dunnellon called Rainbow Lakes Estates.
In essence we now lived in the woods. Sort of. The area had been a tree farm for paper manufacturers before being sold as acreage for homeowners by a developer. It is a beautiful little area but there is no doubt that, at 17, I had a touch of culture shock.
One good thing about moving to the small town of Dunnellon was that they had a small radio station: WTRS. It was the only station I could get clearly on my stereo radio which, while living in New York, could receive hundreds of stations.
The good thing about all of this is that the folks at the radio station had no problem playing "Mr. Happy Man." It was awesome, really! To hear my song on the radio was VERY cool. Unfortunately all my friends lived in New York so only my family heard it. Still, it was very cool and I still remember the name of the man who gave the record the "okay" for airplay. His name was Gary Manning. (If you''re reading this, Gary, thank you!)
I''m going to skip a lot and fast forward…
I never was successful as a recording artist or as a songwriter. I tried desperately but it just didn’t happen.
So, when technology made it possible (and affordable) to record my songs, and SOMEWHAT realize the dream that never was, I dug into my box of songs that had been accumulating over the years and recorded some of them, first, in the 1980s and early 90s on a four track cassette recorder, and then, in 2006, using a SONY software program called Acid Pro 6.
I continue to live in Florida and I now host a morning radio talk show in Ocala.
The songs on this CD are all recorded at home on the Acid Pro 6 with the exception of "Except You" and "If There''s Anything Good" which were both recorded at Pro-Media Recording Studios in Gainesville, Florida. Also, with the exception of the two studio songs, all of these recordings were created in 2006 and 2007 even though most of the songs are very old.
The title song, "One Heart" is an old song that I found in my song box but could not remember the melody to. Only the words and chords were written on the paper so I wrote a new melody based on those chords.
The second song, "Old Run Down Town" is even older than "One Heart." I wrote it sometime around 1975 or so. I never produced it anywhere but I always loved the chord progression and the conflicting message of the lyric.
"I Need You" is pretty self explanatory. It is a love song. But it''s more than that. This is an example of a lyric that purposely addresses more than one person. I often would write to more than one person in a song and I began this song as a love song and then expanded the direction of it so that it is also a song addressing God. I wrote this one in the late 1980s or early 1990s. I just don''t remember the exact year (although it''s probably written on the song).
"XOB, The Full Circle Quest" is my attempt to write an instrumental soundtrack for a novel I wrote for my son when he was nine years old (around 1995). I wrote the novel in 1995, not the recording on this CD. It is, as you can tell by listening, a collage of sounds and loops. If you ever get a chance to read the novel (it is on https://www.tradebit.com, by the way) you''ll know that the "swishing" sounds are time portals opening and closing and the crashing sounds are the characters crash-landing into the different times in the story.
"Jupiter Is So Far Away" is a song I''ve played since I was about 17 or so (circa 1972). I just love the chord progression. The words about Jupiter sound odd out of context but I was trying to write a "rock opera" and this is a remnant from that effort.
"Save The Kittens From The Bulldogs" is just a silly little ditty I used to sing for my friends.
"She Touched Your Lives" is a song I wrote after overhearing a group of people talking about a woman they all knew who passed away. It sounded like they knew her but only as an acquaintance and yet they all had touching little stories about her. This is a fairly new song. I wrote this early in 2006.
"Back To Basics" is another collage piece created with my guitar, the computer, the Acid Pro 6 tools, and some loops. I created this as a music bed for a hyno-therapist who wanted music behind her spoken word meditation CD. Her name is Christine Rossiter. Some little pieces of other melodies are incorporated in this piece ("Jupiter Is So Far Away" for example).
"God Hears Every Prayer" was written around 1986 just prior to my son being born. I was married and had a step-daughter at the time and I took this song to a recording studio after my son, Alex, was born and had layers of instruments in the arrangement including a saxophone. (I eventually became sick of the saxophone part because it sounded like ALL saxophone parts). My favorite part of that studio recording was the fact that my step-daughter, Brie, did a speaking part in it. This recording is not that recording. I''m not even sure if that old recording is still in existence.
"Except You" is a song I wrote for my friend, Robin MacBlane. She has truly been the MOST supportive person in my life in every way that a person CAN be supportive. As I mentioned earlier, I recorded this in a studio. I wrote this sometime in the mid 1990s and Robin stuck around through my divorce, a foreclosure on my home, and countless other trials and tribulations that I probably brought upon myself by being so obstinately determined to generate SOME kind of success with my music. I''ve not been successful but Robin believes in my music anyway (and in me) and there is no way to possibly thank her enough for that. Thank-you, Robin!
"Dream Of A Light Year" is way too long. Sorry about that. Maybe you can program your CD player to skip it. But, if you''re driving, or meditating, or just in the mood for something eclectic, eerie, sometimes dis-jointed, and odd then maybe you''ll get into this piece. It is loaded with loops and sounds (including my telephone) and, well, I guess I was just playing around and got carried away.
"If There''s Anything Good" was written around the time of the September 11th attacks. It was written, however, for a little premature baby that died at just 4 days of age. The story was that the family was splintered and the death of this little baby brought them all together again and made them realize the importance of each other and the fragility of all of us. The proximity in time to the song being written and the 9/11 attacks always has made me associate the message in the song with the families devastated on that day (as well as the spirit of the world as a whole). So, while this song wasn''t specifically written for 9/11 I have since associated it with that day.
Hey, thank you for being interested enough in my music to read this far. I hope you enjoy the recording.
Larry Whitler
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