My “Brief But Spectacular Take” on the Music Business

Recognize anyone in this picture?

This picture was taken in the old Omni Arena in April, 1975. John Denver is seated second from left. And, improbably, there I am front and center!

But I’ve started in the middle… here’s the rest of the story.

Moving full-time to Aspen, Colorado, in the fall of 1970, I discovered there a musical community in which I felt at home in a way I never had before.  The feelings I had then were summarized for me a few years later, when John Denver wrote the lyric, “He was born in the summer of his twenty-seventh year, coming home to a place he’d never been before.”  My mind, and my mother, thought I should be preparing for a serious career.  My heart wanted to play music with my friends.

From Jack’s first album cover, 1970

I had no idea what might lay in store for me when I arrived in Aspen.  I was just happy to be there and playing music with my friend, the late Jack Hardy. The winter of 1970-1971 turned out to be the beginning of a truly magical time for me.  It was an improbable adventure that taught me some deep lessons about the possibility of living life as a calling.

 As Jack Hardy became a songwriter of near-legendary stature, especially in Greenwich Village and in Europe, he decided he wanted to record his own songs. In November of 1970, Jack and I packed up and drove to New York, where we and two of Jack’s friends went into the studio. In two days, we came out with a vinyl record, the first I had the privilege of working on. The picture of me on the back cover shows a young man with unkempt hair and huge sideburns, and a huge smile on his face.