The Story of Cheap… In the heart of my life in the South, a kindred spirit has connected me with other musicians who love Blues and Classic Rock, Funk, and Soul and everything in between. It has been life-altering to come to terms with my own musical expression as I continued studying the works of the Classical Guitarists who shaped the history of the guitar, namely, Ferdinando Carulli, an Italian composer. Inspired by the methods and Preludes of Carulli, I was moved to write more music in 2024 and 2025. By the end 2025, I had written seventeen songs and knew there was a story to tell, one that is derived not only from appreciation of experiences that changed me as a person, but also from every day observations that compelled more music to pour out from the depths of my core. So, I have set out by design with ten of the songs, creating a narrative flow with my power chords, pentatonic melodies, my progressions paying tribute to the grandfathers of guitar history. Winter and Spring of 2026 brought with it a new opportunity to produce my music in a different way. I began working on Cheap in the studio, at 11 ½ Fathoms Audio, to manifest the album right here in Virginia. The studio time is wonderfully collaborative. It challenges me to look deeper into my intention and to develop my sound in the very bespoke way that it is happening for the music itself.
When I really think about it...Cheap started out as a diary of sorts, like daily lists of bills and expenses and little notes I jotted down - quotes of things people said to me and how they made me feel - so I wouldn't forget them. Each remark had a timelessness that I could only capture in the moment the words were uttered. There were tasks that were unavoidable. An Uber ride, for example, the exchange of money. Payment. The cost of living. Renewing my membership somewhere, or my registration. Time, wages, it's all a part of life. So these notebooks continued over several years and in between the pages about bills and expenses and how much I paid for this or that, there were incidents recounted, surprising and memorable conversations that transpired between myself and people in my life.
So one page said, "Renew dropbox $138," and then the next page was suddenly an outburst of how cheap something felt, whatever it was. Maybe I ordered a raincoat thinking it was an accurate knock off of a London Fog, but when it arrived it was more like an apricot colored shower curtain with large plastic buttons on it (great for the airport, by the way, it feels very protective and the germs just slide right off) but really, when it's hanging on my closet door, it doesn't look like quality, it looks cheap. Or maybe I shared an Uber with someone who didn't offer to help pay for any part of the ride, or maybe I was in an elevator standing closest to the door but no one in the elevator followed etiquette and people rudely brushed past me instead of allowing me to exit first. Those kinds of moments feel cheap to me.
Before I knew it, I had a pile of notebooks on top of my piano - pages and pages filled with lists of various bills and tasks interspersed by pages containing lyrics and lead sheets and progressions carefully spelled out with their respective Roman numerals. It's funny because I even had notebooks that I had designated for specific guitar assignments that looked like essays on Classical guitarists interrupted by more song lyrics and musical ideas, as if the very men who had invented classical guitar teaching methods, and men who were the grandfathers of guitar music - Carulli, Carcassi, Tarrega, Albeniz, and Calatayud, Ponce - were all inspiring me to write more music as I studied them.
As I began to leaf through each notebook in an attempt to isolate my musical sketches and ideas, I could clearly see how Cheap had actually developed, and I could see how much I was influenced by the emotions. The way the events from my daily life compounded with my guitar studies made me feel something that was beyond the humdrum of day to day living, beyond the occasional - and sometimes unexpected - breaking news stories. The feelings that moved me to write my music were all there, hidden in these spiral notebook diaries. There were interesting passages inside the chronology of it all. There would be a grocery list, and then something that was, perhaps, about a report that was delivered to me at work on a Friday that depressed me enough to ruin my weekend and then, "Boom!" There was a song written on the next page. Or I had started writing one song and then I received the news that my high school sweetheart had passed away and then the next page in the notebook was a song about my high school sweetheart. That's what an artist's life is like, it's a creative energy that flows, continues and transcends. It can feel a bit out of control - like something that gets away from you too soon. So, it felt great to harness that flow of energy and to notice the convergence happening. There was a cohesive group of grooves and drum patterns and musical vibes that held it all together...There was definitely a distinct style developing in my artistry, a new aesthetic. I couldn't deny it.
R&B artists I had studied, Gospel and Soul artists, were showing up in my music. The Classical grandfathers of the guitar all had a hand in it. Even the influence of Jazz was showing up. I could not deny that, either. So there is a lot going on with this album and I feel it is a force all of its own. With each and every track that I re-record and with every decision I make about each song, I know something good is happening. As much as I wanted to release the whole album this summer, I can see there is more work to be done. I am giving each track the dignity to become what they deserve to be. The album is worth it.
