Parallels (EP)
Audio recording coming soon
I'm often inspired by songs from other musicians and genres. But instead of playing a straight cover, I like to ask myself, "How would this sound if I had written it?"
Sometimes the result ends up close to the original. Other times it turns into something completely different, capturing more of the feeling the song gives me than its actual notes. I think of these pieces as coming from a "parallel universe" where I happened to write the original tune.
I also write songs as tributes to musicians I admire. I don't try to sound exactly like them - most of the time I couldn't even if I wanted to. Instead, I try to express the appreciation and emotion I feel when I listen to their music.
With all that in mind, this album is a mix of parallels and tributes - my musical reflections on artists and songs that have meant something to me.
As always, I hope you enjoy listening. And if you do, feel free to share this page or these tracks with friends and on social media.
Track List and Notes
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At the turn of the millennium, Carlos Santana's Smooth dominated the charts. I hadn't heard it for decades, but it recently popped up in one of my music feeds, and I immediately reconnected with its beat and chord progression. So the next time I picked up my guitar, I wrote this parallel. It's a little rough, but sometimes you have to take the rough with the "Smooth." (And yes - I did write a whole song just to land that bad pun.)
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Jack Pearson is a Nashville-based guitarist who moves effortlessly through blues, jazz, rock, and pop - always with quiet confidence and humble grace. He's widely known for his time with the Allman Brothers. I saw a recent video of him playing and singing their classic Blue Sky, which sparked this tune. It isn't a true parallel to that song; it's more of a heartfelt tribute to Jack and to the Allmans' gentler moments, like Melissa.
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I have a dear friend who's nearly 90, and I visit or video-call her every day. At the end of each visit, I remind her that she can call me whenever she needs help. One day I accidentally said, "Call me any, anytime," and Blondie's Call Me instantly jumped into my head. Compared to the original, my parallel is far less "new-wave disco dance, booty call me," and much more "relax, you've got a nearby friend who's just a phone call away."
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This tune grew out of the feeling you get right before falling asleep. It began not as a musical parallel but as a "song-title" parallel. William Ackerman has a great tune called Climbing in Geometry, and I thought it would be fun to write a tongue-in-cheek tribute called Falling in Trigonometry. One night, I started improvising what I imagined "falling in trig" would sound like - but because it was so late, it ended up feeling more like "drifting off to sleep" instead.
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Named after Wes Montgomery's Four on Six, this tune began as my take on his octave style - blending a low and high version of the same note for that big, warm sound. But I did something Wes almost never did: I used open strings (notes played without pressing the string down). That gave the song a 12-string shimmer that reminded me of my old folk-music days - even though I was on a regular 6-string guitar. In the end, it sounded nothing like Wes. Sorry, Wes ... maybe next time I'll manage a better tribute.
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This tune began as a parallel to Janis Ian's Hunger - a favorite of mine, and a song where Ian's guitar playing had a big influence on my acoustic style. She doesn't always get the credit she deserves for how thoughtful and expressive her playing is. But while her bluesy piece is about intense longing and desire ("I hunger for you"), mine is much softer, leaning toward a quieter, gentler sense of emotional warmth and connection.