Duets with Terry

Work with Terry to write this page on how Terry and I got together (through Sentimental Journey) and recorded duets.

WORKING DRAFT PAGE IDEAS

How We Met

Terry and I met when I began singing with the small ensemble Sentimental Journey. Its focus was on multi-part harmony of songs from the 1940's. Their name came from the song "Sentimental Journey" which was very popular from that period.

They started as an impromptu group of folks who liked to sing who got together to sing 1940's music from the rooftop of a Federal building overlooking the Washington, DC mall for a 4^th of July. That evolved into the small singing group Sentimental Journey. Terry and David joined after the group's initial July 4^th performance.

Initial Recordings

In approximately 1990, while both of us were singing with Sentimental Journey, David was thinking about recording as a way to create something more lasting than performances. It happened Terry had already begun recording at Bias Recording Studio and asked David to come record some duets with him.

Although Terry had previously worked mostly with Bias partner Mr. Bob Dawson, we wound up recording the duets mostly with then partner Mr. Bill McElroy.

My recollection is that much of Bob's availability was then preempted for extended recording sessions for Mary Chapin Carpenter albums. She had recently become very popular, and her initial producer, John Jennings, was based in Washington, DC at Bias.

She would later move her record production to Nashville, KY.

Samples of Duet Recordings with Terry

Duet numbers Terry selected for us to record came from his wide interest in different musical types. Samples included here are from two groups:

• Everly Brothers songs, and
• Lead motivational song from the musical, Starlight Express.

Develop an explanation/discussion of the important role recording these duets played in our respective lives.

[Add discussion about songs selected, why?]

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Influence of Multipart Harmony Singing

Terry and David's contining participation with Sentimental Journey eventually led to Terry and David experimenting with more modern multipart arrangements of songs with members from Sentimental Journey. An example of that is "The Rose", where a member from Sentimental Journey joined Terry and David in that recording. It represents yet another illustratation of the fun we had making harmony together as an ensemble. (Note. Terry played all the accompanying guitar and synthesizer tracks on "The Rose.")

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Result

The fulfillment we had recording together also provided a great introduction to working in a recording studio, when things were still in analogue on multi-track tapes. Those experiences led David to undertake creating his initial recording. That first private album, Solo Collection, was privately released in 1992. Recording and participating in production of that private album provided even more learning experiences in creation of recordings.

(Note. TortoiseClimbing™ was created at that time as part of the private release of Solo Collection.)

David then began working on a follow-up private album, Romantic Duets with a variety of women. While working on that 2^nd recording, David's mother asked him to record and produce what is now, Hymns and Songs of My Mother.

Based on his mother's preference the album be quality, and for release to the public, meant the new project required much higher quality production, including instrumentation, targeted for public release.

That resulted in the first major evolution of TortoiseCimbing™'s mission/goals, i.e., when its quality bar was raised from nice to exceptional, and its market was expanded from private to public.

The current plan is to retroactively apply the additional lessons learned and higher quality bar as part of revisiting the original privately released Solo Collection, to augment its production quality for public re-release in 2024 as the upgraded recording titled Nostalgic Solos.

(No decision has been made on what will be done with the draft duets album.)

Next, see Original TortoiseClimbing™).

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