Having escaped the mental morass of “Opus Incertum” with the last bare shreds of my self-worth intact, my plans for next steps involved creating a “best-of” compilation, with the intent of triaging material from my previous 6 albums (if such they could be called), which would give me a core from which to renew my shopping to record labels.

I pulled out all the masters, and began making the culls… and suddenly realized that it wasn’t time to do that just yet. For some reason, I was particularly critical of my development as a songwriter about this time, and even more so was I chastising my production skills. I decided to put the compilation aside for a short time, and focus on recording a song or two without having to write it first. So, on January 22nd, 1999, I played hooky from work, and began recording a version of David Bowie’s “The Man Who Sold the World”.

A week later, playing back the finished product, I realized there were many more songs I had always wanted a chance to do… my journal records my incredulity at the number of potential songs - so I set to it. At the time, I didn’t realize this project would take me over 3 years to complete!

The Playlist:

NOTE: These are my own versions of the songs. I have listed the recording artists whose original versions I referenced while teaching myself to play them. These are recordings done for my own amusement. No copyright is asserted for them, and absolutely no profit (no revenue of any sort, actually… much less “profit”!) has ever been made from them.

1. Love is Like an Itchin’ In My Heart (Diana Ross and the Supremes)
2. By This River (Brian Eno)
3. Duke of Earl (Gene Chandler)
4. My Heart Will Go On (Celine Dion)
5. The End of My Pirate Days (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
6. Natural Mystic (Bob Marley)
7. Just For A Moment (Ultravox – in the John Foxx Era)
8. The Israelites (Desmond Dekker and the Aces)
9. Celebration Day (Led Zeppelin)
10. I Am The Walrus (The Beatles)
11. The Man Who Sold the World (David Bowie)
12. Lonesome Dove (Trisha Yearwood)
13. If Not For You (Olivia Newton John)
14. Pleasure Victim (Berlin)
15. Bali H’ai (Gloria Lynne)
16. Oh, Shennandoah (American Folksong)
17. Holly Holy (Neil Diamond)

All along the way I was dogged by failures - failing equipment, failing tape sync, failing health - at one point I went out with some work buddies to play tag football, and managed to shatter two knuckles on my left hand catching the first pass! Recalling the relative ease with which Theory and Escape was recorded, I was seething by the time I completed this, and the final push to conclusion was an effort of sheer determination. Still, it remains my favorite out of everything I’ve recorded, just because it’s so fun to watch people’s expressions when they listen. The fact that they know some of the songs seems to make it more “accessible” to them.

An interesting aside - I have yet to encounter anyone who knows (i.e. has heard the original versions) of every song on this collection. In a way, that saddens me - there is a lot of good songwriting represented here, and this seems to point out either a need for more radio stations to play these songs, or some method of getting like-minded people together to share what they like with others. It’s an indictment of the control that Corporate Radio has over the minds and tastes of the public.

Meanwhile, this project was never offered for sale, for licensing reasons. I’m still trying to get the licensing in place, but in the meantime, I recorded these for fun, not for profit… so they are offered freely here.