My Singer-Songwriter Journey  

The Early Years

My musical journey began at age 11, in the basement of my Winnipeg, MB home. This is where I learned to play the drums. I also took up keyboard and voice lessons in my teens. I later made my living drumming in bands around Western Canada.

My early influences ranged from motown to pop, latin and jazz.

Music Paused For Family

I packed away my drums, soon after I married and began raising his family. In retirement, I took up the ukulele, and started writing songs.

Early Albums

Balance In Life, was released in 2020, and was my first album, I guess you could say the the first album took many decades to write, as it is a collection of what I felt were the best songs to date.

Richard’s Best Drum Rhythms of 50 Years was released later that year as a “drums only” album. It is a salute to my drumming years. These drum recordings were done around 2012, and I decided to release them. Using only drums, cowbells, wood blocks, tambourine, and an electronic drum, I tapped out some wildly melodic rhythms ( at least for drums ) , and I feel is my best drumming. After making these recordings, I sold my drums, as we were moving.

All Is Right With The World was released in 2021. I feel this album represents some of my best chord patterns to date. Part of songwriting is to continue to learn and grow as a musician, so you can bring new music to your songwriting.

The Older I Got, The Wiser Dad Seemed To Be, was released in 2022.   The title song is a Hat’s Off to my Dad. 

They’re Not Making Land Anymore

Track Titles are

1. They’re Not Making Land Anymore – Talks about the housing crisis in Canada.

2. Stone In My Shoe – A blusey “looking for better days” track.

3. You’re The Change You Seek – Inspired by the speeches of Barrack Obama, this song tells you to lift yourself up by your bootstraps.

4. Between – A song about grief, over the death of their son Nathan in 1991 at the age of 15.

5. Time To Grow – A song about self improvement.

6. YOLO You Only Live Once – a song that reflects on how best to use our time.

7. Peaceful Place – a song about something we all want, a peaceful place to live and rest.

8. Play Your Part – a song about helping out in society, and has a rhythmic beat and riff.

9. Moving Our Life – a song about moving to a new town, and the feelings around that time.

They’re Not Making Land Anymore, I feel is a patchwork of rhythms, chords and riffs woven together, with the threads of my musical and age experience.

Old Songwriters Never Die, They Just …

I sometimes wonder how much song inspiration do I have ? How many more songs can I write ? Of course I don’t know.

Maybe old songwriters never die, they just run out of words / lyrics. But I can say today, I’m not there yet.