There may be more later, but for right now, this is what I’ve got.
The following numbers from The Burden of Eden were recorded in June of 2006 at Live Oak Studio in Berkeley, California and at NacNud Studios in Lodi, California. James Ward and Rick Duncan did the sound design to my arrangements. Aside from my keyboard playing, Miles O’Mahony, Phil Hoover and Julian Hoover played bass, drums, and guitar respectively on all tunes.
The singers were Lauren Mack, Tessa Stewart, and myself for the three songs linked above, listed in consecutive order. My voice student Tessa was only 14 at the time, and hers was the song mastered at NacNud. The rest were done at Live Oak, where Lauren Mack excelled during a single take, having learned the song from the recording of the instrumental accompaniment while at home in San Jose, and having driven to Berkeley for the one-take phenomenon. I am also grateful for the financial backing of Wayne Robinson, without whom the recording project would not have been possible.
All three of these particular songs, though included in The Burden of Eden, were composed a rather long time ago. “Reaching for Your Hand” was originally called “Martyr” and used in my 1973 show Over My Dead Body, with lyrics that were a bit different and, to my mind, considerably less mature. I changed the less savory portions as well as the title for use in the later production. The other pieces, while not figuring in musicals of my authorship per se, also were written in the ten year time span between 1972 and 1982. My point is that, while they reflect the thrust and passion of youth, they don’t reflect my more mature and sophisticated compositions, which I would hope to have been fermented with age. Whatever the case, I hope you enjoy my work, as would any Artist, despite his own attitude toward same.
If one is skeptical as to whether my composing has evolved, one need only know that I’m not adding songs I wrote thirty or forty years ago any longer, since I only did so because I doubted my ability to compose new music in the present day. That alone says something.
Eden in Babylon 