I’ve written many songs, musical works, and percussion arrangements over the years. I still have old tablets of notes and lyrics and track sheets.

I have some great stories to tell about the creation of many of those songs.

I wanted to start by talking about the title song, The Ballad of Johnny Rose. Unfortunately I cannot remember where I was when I wrote this, unlike many other songs. After digging thorough a pile of note-tablets, I learned that I wrote it in 2007. That’s all the information I have on this. It’s weird how I can’t remember anything about the writing of this song, because I do have so many other vivid memories of where I was, and what triggered me to write other songs.

On Jan. 1 of 1999 I began a two year Clairvoyant Program at the Berkeley Psychic Institute in Mt. View, CA. We had a special “2 year Class” once a month on Berkeley. I was living in San Jose at the time. After that first class, as I was driving home from Berkeley to San Jose, I contemplated the theme of the class, which was Let Your Light Shine. Lyrics started pouring out of me, and soon I was humming a melody to go with them. When I got home, I went to the piano, and one hour and four minute latter I had a completed song. The song today has not been changed. Everything we recorded was exactly the way it was originally written. On that drive home I had the self awareness that I was in a very creative state. For some reason Mozart popped into my head, and I decided to allow him to channel through me in the creation on the musical notes that would accompany my lyrics. When I sat at the piano, my hands just went to position, and started moving. I began writing as fast as I could. It all just flowed out of me. It happened so fast I was completely amazed. I had written a lot of music before this, but it usually took more time to craft each idea into a musical piece. This literally took one hour of contemplation and one hour of writing on staff paper. But actually, before that, earlier that very same day; I started my day at 10 am at the Mt View Institute. I “ran my energy” (meditated) for 1/2 an hour. Then I answered the phones while I played janitor for 2 hours. Then I ran my energy for another 1/2 hour before joining Peggy, the Assistant Director, in a Psychic Reading that had been scheduled for that day. We read for 2 hours. After the “clean-out” I left, grabbed some drive-through food somewhere, and proceeded to drive the two hour journey to Berkeley. Yes it was two hours to get there, but at 11 pm it only took one hour to get home (fun times).

Once I arrived at the Institute in Berkeley, I ran my energy for 1/2 an hour. Class was two hours long. We stayed in a psychic state the whole time, and did short, 5-10 minute reading several times in the class. When I looked back on the day, I realized I had been “In the Zone” for about 12 hours before I began writing Let Your Light Shine. This song didn’t just happen instantaneously, it took a day of meditation & psychic-reading to achieve that state of consciousness that allowed me to communicate with The Supreme Being and to channel the information I was meant to share.

This was the first of many of theses type of experiences I had in the two years I attended the Clairvoyant program.

I look forward to sharing stories about some of the other songs in the show, but let’s return to The Ballad of Johnny Rose. This was another song that flowed out of me so fast it was amazing. It was like I was transcribing for someone telling me what to write. Latter, as I read & sang my song, I realized That I had this total story about one man’s journey to BPI. But suddenly, in my mind, it became an overture, it became just the beginning of a bigger show. I thought about all the songs I had already written, and when I put them together, a cohesive story started to emerge. Most composers decide to write a show about something, then start writing music. I’ve always marched to the beat of a different drummer. I wrote half of the songs before I even knew I was writing a Rock-Opera. A few years latter I was at a funeral for Steve, an old musician friend. My old mates from Liberty were there, Jim & Mark. When I told them I had written this show, they reminded me that I had been wanting to write a rock-opera ever since I got the album Tommy, by The Who. I guess even though I had consciously forgotten that desire, it remained a strong “moch-up” in my sub-conscious. I love my sub-conscious! It’s like having a little assistant doing stuff for me that I had forgotten to do.