Well, it’s been quite a year!
While the last 3 months have been a battle with long Covid, filled with some highs and many lows, I wanted to end the year with Gratitude in my life and in my heart; to look back on a great year. And, I wanted to take a moment to simply say, thank you…
Thank you to everyone that has been a part of this journey with me - I truly could not do what I am doing without you. The personal connections that have been made this year have filled my heart. The support from family and friends, as well as other musicians and industry professionals, has reminded me just how lucky I am to know all of you. Thank you for welcoming me into your lives.
Now, I’ve been known to ramble on a bit, so I’d like to keep this one short. As we head into 2023 (or is it still March 987th of 2020 lol!) There's plenty to look back on and look ahead to...
January 2022 kicked off with a bang, as I hit the studio and began the project that would become The Robotanist album. My most ambitious project to date, it taught me many things about songwriting, arranging and recording; new tools that I have brought with me into future projects.
I am immensely proud of The Robotanist project, and I am quite certain we have not heard the last word from our semi-depressed robot botanist friend…
During the Summer months, things turned up a notch further, as I completed my goal of writing and recording an entire album in 30 days. I’d say that 80% of Haunted Cowboy Sounds was completed in 2 separate 48-hour writing-recording sessions. A feat that I may not match again (and a feat I may not even try again - lol!). Almost 30-years in the music world, and I feel like I am making my best music ever…
And, as many of you already know, the Haunted Cowboy Sounds album inspired its own companion album, and The Wanderer EP (7 Classic Country Songs) was released on the same day (November 13th), bringing my discography to 7 full albums completed since March of 2021.
With the theme of this post being gratitude, I have to send out a BIG heartfelt thank you to my friend Sydney Oberholtzer-Capitani!
Coming back to the music world after a lengthy break brought many challenges, but one that I did not expect was the difficulty in navigating the music industry as a solo musician. With no one to hold me accountable to timelines and project completion, many great ideas remained just simple ideas and never actually saw the light of day.
I reached out to Sydney a few months back, explaining the difficulties I was having, wondering if she would be interested in having an occasional chat to help me navigate through these ideas.
Well, I have been extremely fortunate because she not only said yes, but she has given me countless hours of her time through regular meetings (and pretty much daily text messages back and forth!). Sydney has helped me bring my music and my marketing to a new level and it has just brought me so much joy to have a “co-conspirator” in the music world. We share a lot of ideas and a lot of laughs… It doesn’t get any better than that!!
And speaking of Sydney, that brings me to one more amazing highlight from 2022… Joining Sydney and her sister Sam on their podcast, The Set Up.
As I wrote in my most recent blog post, The Set Up podcast has been a game-changer and a life-changer for me personally, so to end 2022 as a guest was an absolute thrill and a career highlight!
Catch our episode here:
And as we end 2022 and its challenges, would you be surprised to hear that I’m already working on the next album… Yeah, I didn’t think you would be… ;)
Thank you friends, for being in my world.
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