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For those of you who aren't familiar with my history, prior to my career in finance I was a musician. I began playing guitar at age 12. When I was about 15 (1967) I joined a band called the"Patch of Blue." I was their lead singer and we did the pop tunes of theday at high school dances and Sweet Sixteens. About 2 years later I joined up with my good friends Don Cook and Hugh Fisher and we started writing our own original material. We sounded like a cross between Crosby Stills and Nash and Simon and Garfunkle. We added a fourth, David Kalpakis, and the harmonies began to get fuller and more complicated. Years later I decided to get a formal education in music. I spent a couple of years studying harmony and composition with Ovid Avarma at Dawson College in Montreal.I took up flute, bass guitar and I learned a little keyboard.
As often happens with young artists and musicians, life got in the way, children were born and bills had toget paid. So I left my foolish notions of stardom behind and joined the ranks of the middle class. As I got older I felt that if I couldn't makea living playing and writing pop tunes I could a least leave a record of my efforts. So that's what this is all about. I'm going to post a mix of originals and cover tunes that I recorded myself for anyone who's interested. Find out how I put together the arrangements and my recording techniques, see bottom of this page.
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| For No One | Don't Think Twice |
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The next section
is reserved for original material but I have also posted over 50 cover tunes here. I am sure you may find a few to your liking so go take a listen.
Originals
What music site would be complete without some original material. Here are some tunes written and performed by yours truly...Over the years I've played and sang in many bands. Unfortunately I don't have many pictures to show you. In those days we didn't all run around with a smartphone in our pockets.
This is the band I played in called Solid Oak in 1977. I was the bass player and I'm the guy with the beard on the far right.
We played a lot of Eagles, Poco etc...Country Rock basically.
Ever since I was a kid and learned the words to Elvis Presley's "Are you Lonesome Tonight?" I wanted to be a singer. When I was 7 I got my 2 foster sisters to act out back-up harmony while I crooned out Elvis' ballad. At 14 I was lead singer with a neighborhood band called "A Patch of Blue." I picked up the guitar when I was about 16 and soon began writing my own material with the help of my good friend and collaborator Don Cook. From 1968 to about 1972 Don and I wrote and played together, mostly acoustic guitar duets. ( Unfortunately I received the bad news that Don had passed away a couple of years back, I believe it was in 2021) Around '69 Hughie Fisher joined the group as our bass guitarist and vocalist. Finally in the early 70's we added David Kalpakis and formed a band that would later be called Family, Friends and Future, this phrase taken from a song I had written. Many "interesting"(in the Chinese sense of the term) things happened to me during this period and I hope to set them all down one day .
Here's the link to my daughter's web site which is a work in progress....Erica Forrest