"Always" is a Dream Come True

"Always" has been a project that I have wanted to record for a long time.

I have wanted to do a recording like “Always” for a long time.  I can’t believe I’ve done it and that it is finally available to share with my audience.

I grew up with all kinds of music.  I mean all kinds of music.  Daddy, a preacher was partial to gospel hymns and country songs.  Mamma was the preacher’s wife piano player who studied classical music so she loved Bach and Mozart and hymn writers like Fanny Crosby and  John Wesley.   Our home was filled with all those lovely sounds, and overlaying it all was the gentle romance of my mother who played tender love songs for us.  She bought sheet music of George and Ira Gershwin’ like “Summertime,” and Irving Berlin’s, “Always,” and movie themes like Henry Mancini’s and Johnny Mercer’s “Charade”.  I would look through her childhood movie magazine scrap books while she played those beautiful songs from her youth.

I am so happy that I got the chance to record this project thanks to the generosity of my  good friends Mike and Sally Clark. The bottom line is that I love all those songs and the  subject of love that  covers them all like star dust.  Speaking of star dust...Marvin Gaspard and his trio played for me in such a sensitive way on this recording that I was transported in my memory to the joy of sitting by Mamma on the piano bench watching her beautifully curved fingers and hearing and learning about love.

It was in the honor of the romantic love of my parents that I recorded this songs.