You probably know me as a piano player. I never wanted to play piano. Elvis played guitar, and so did Willie Nelson. That was all that mattered in those days. My dad taught me a few chords on his old Silvertone acoustic. I would play and he would sing and play harmonica.

That was all going really well for a while and somehow or another we ended up with the practice piano from the church. I learned Unchained Melody more or less but really only plinked around on it. Then I found myself in a halfway house for a few months with a student of Ellis Marsalis. With nothing else to do and no guitar around, he taught me enough to walk a decent bass line and play oom-pa stride. What shot me into the sky and exploded me into the stars was his record collection of James Booker and Prokofiev. Never heard anything like it.

In the years after that, I gigged with either guitar or piano at bars and cafes around town, whatever they wanted when they called. That got me a bit of experience. I started singing too, just to expand my opportunities. All that got me playing bachelorette parties, church services, and a cruise ship (once). And for a few years in a funeral parlor, where I could make a dollar or two extra if I was also willing to move the body. But that’s all history and I can barely remember it now.

I’ve lived in Berlin for the majority of the last decade, writing songs on the east side of the city. There’s a grand piano in here, some microphones, tape machines, a couple of guitars. A handful of tools and spare parts to keep it all running. I’ve dreamt up a lot and recorded a little. Most of it I’ve deleted. The little I’ve put into the world is floating in the ether now, nowhere to be found. A couple of years ago I started reissuing it. Why should I be the only one with access to my scuffed up old treasures?

45 is the most recent one I’ve done. It’s brand new, though. Like everything else in the world, it just kind of happened out of pressure and potential. Being both inspired and unemployed is a great recipe for progress when you already have a pile of old gear like I do. I wrote everything, recorded it myself, mixed it, all that. Other musicians played on these recordings – the drums and horns mostly. They came in, knocked it out, and left.

This record is also a diary of how I spent my nights for the better part of a year. I’m enjoying my second glass of whiskey now reminiscing about it, but it’s not something I think I’d do again.