Track Listing

About the Album

A fresh and modern collection of love and wedding songs with catchy melodies and a tight band backing them up. Think Knopfler and Nick Drake fronting the Dave Matthews Band.

This is the second collaboration between myself and producer/musician extraordinaire, Nick Garrett-Powell, and my 12th full-length recording. Taking a new bent and direction from my entirely acoustic previous release, Coffee Shop Songs, this new project explores some creative song stylings. Offerings range from acoustic guitar and violin ballads to hard-rock funk, haunting choral vignettes all the way to French language hip-hop.

Nick once again showcases his amazing harmonies and diverse arrangements, but really shines in his expressive electric guitar leads borrowing inspiration from the likes of Knopfler and Satriani. Joining msyelf and Nick on this project is the percussion prodigy, Nick James, who manages to capture the many intricate rhythmic and timing changes and really helps rock the project up several notches.

This CD is a special collection of love and wedding songs that I have written over the last 10 years for friends and performed at their weddings. The majority of the album includes recent love songs that I wrote for my own wife, especially "Cord of Three Strands" which I sang as a proposal in the Fall of 2008. The album starts off with an upbeat rock tune about how we met through an online dating service and features a humorous modem dial-up sequence as a solo break.

The rock ballad, "Same Star", continues to further the story of our relationship and give the title for the album through the lyric:

Now we go outside at night
Hand in hand we pass 'neath the streetlights
So we can look up into the sky
Together look up at the same star

One of the highlights on the album is the hip-hop track "Mon étoile filante" which I wrote entirely in French and sings of how my wife is "My shooting star, my jewel from heaven, my gift from God above."

The album ends with a couple of bonus acoustic versions of some of the earlier songs to highlight my signature pinch-slap, percussive picking technique. The final track is a short reprise of the song "Starting" featuring just my vocals and Nick's amazing harmonies. All in all this is a great modern collection of love songs that provides many new choices to replace some of the more antiquated tracks normally heard at most weddings.

Highly recommended for fans of Brandon Heath, Bebo Norman, Matt Nathanson, and Joshua Radin.