Doug Gray & Friends

I wanted to do a record with my friends and I wanted to do a record about Love. Not romantic love, but the ethereal essence of Love. I decided to work with the following artists not only because they believe in Love, but their lives appeared to me to be "Love-in-action".

Here's a bit about my friends:

Jose Figueroa - Credited on the record as Executive Producer, Jose (my music partner in The Brotherhood, The Madd Hitters, The Sons of Liberty and my business partner) not only financed the record, but was involved in the creative process every step of the way. Always there to confer with regarding sonic quality and on what was hot and what was not.

Justin Milner - My engineer all-star and assistant producer. Justin has sculpted live sound for a diverse group of artists from Alicia Keys to the Warp tour. I like my mixes to sound live and rickety. Justin is always ready with a great pair of ears, a madd effect or a pint of Guinness.

I wrote and played all of the music on the record with the exception of the bass lines of "Slip Away" and "The Sweetest Emotion". Smokin' Joe Wheelock, a phenomenal player on guitar and bass contributed the bottom to those two trax along with a lot of righteous attitude.

THE SINGERS!

Asa Rydman - (pronounced aw-sah). Asa provided lyrics and vocals on "The Radio Song" and "Intelligent People". Asa is a native of Sweden and has released (3) brilliant albums of her own. She reads my mind and blows my mind at the same time. Check her out at: www.asarydman.com.

Michelle Duff - Michelle provided vocals and co-wrote "Love Is" and "The Sweetest Emotion" with me. She can sing anything, any style, and do it with heart and soul. She's also way chill, easy to work with, and has a big, big voice (break out the compressors).

Tamar Haviv - Tamar provided lyrics and vocals for "Slip Away". What can I say about Tamar? Range, passion, intensity, depth. She killed this track in one take as we were writing the song, and that's the take we went with. We didn't even have the headphones on. Justin filtered out the bleed from the speakers and what you hear is the virgin first take.

That's it. Dig-it!!

Doug Gray & Friends releases on Amathus Music: