Original Songs & Choral Charts by Steve Kloser
The first song of substance I wrote was in 1973, for my high school sweetheart. I have a vivid memory of singing it for her while playing her parents' baby grand, with Pete Baird playing stand-up and singing backgrounds! Click for the lead sheet It has been recorded many times over the years; my favorite rendition is Billy Mixer's. Play Katie's Song I do not remember how it was that my life intersected with Billy Mixer's, but I will surely never forget him. I was lucky enough to work with him as we recorded a set of my tunes, which became bundled as Alphabetical Order. He worked hard on each tune, even the one he later confessed that he didn't care for, bringing life to each tune, some of which had been hanging around waiting to be dealt with for years. But he fell in love with Grampa's Lullaby and dove in head first. He enlisted Gary Skye to lay down the wonderful piano track and he worked the vocals until they were and are pretty much perfect. Play Grampa's Lullaby I was recently saddened to learn that Billy passed, much too early, in 2022. I certainly wish I had gotten an opportunity to work with him again. Portland, the musical community, and I will miss him for a long time to come. He was a true artist. I was extremely spoiled at a very young age by having the opportunity to work with truly great musicians like Tim Heintz, Brandon Fields, Karl Denson, John Patitucci, Scott and Stan Martin (I never got to work with Andy!), Bill Liston, Jay Anderson, Vito Biondo, Mike Higgins; and later Vince Frates and my favorite bass player - Jon Shaw, on the instrumental side, and I have had the privilege to work with some great vocalists, including Billy, my talented wife Nancy, Zach Lenox, and the best vocal sight reader I have ever, ever run across, Jocelyn Thomas. As Chuck said, "What's a song but someone's dream?" and what's a dream without players and singers to make them real? I have been truly blessed to have had such great musicians play and sing my stuff. I am honored and grateful. Lastly, I have to say a word about barbershop singing, on which I was spoon fed and grew up on and for a large portion of my early life, was the only music I knew or knew of, other than hymns in church. Serious musicians - a term I find exclusively self-imposed - often look down their nose at barbershop as some sort of pedestrian version of the art of singing. I would not trade the hours and years I listened to my mom coach her quartet or rehearse her chorus or my dad push vowels, vowels, vowels as he strove for perfection with his quartet The Shamrocks (incredible green jackets!), for anything. They gave me an understanding of vowels and intonation and togetherness that I have found nowhere else in the musical world, and there is not one singer I have met in lo these many years, from shower singer to the various folk with PhD's in music or choral conducting, who would not benefit from a couple Sweet Adeline or (what used to be called SPEBSQSA) men's barbershop chorus rehearsals. Thanks Lu and Paul. Contact me at: 603.242.2898 |