Throughout the years that followed, I lost touch with Rick but continued to develop my musical skills studying with my friend Keith, a jazz guitarist and Berklee grad, and vocal coach and former performer on the jazz scene, Aaron Rae. With an apartment full of guitars and musical gadgets, in 1999 I set about building my second recording studio in my mom’s attic (my first was Rick’s cassette tape deck set up in the living room of the camp), which consisted of a few guitars and amps, a $200 electronic keyboard with a built in drum machine, a Tascam 4-track high-speed tape deck, a reverb unit, and me with enough naïveté to think that with these gadgets I was going to create great music. My friend Bob came by one day and helped me pad the walls of the attic space to create the look and feel of a real live make-believe recording studio.
Once having written and produced a dozen or so songs in my little studio, I was pleasantly surprised when playing the material for friends and family all of whom seemed to agree that the music was "not awful." Of course, that ended when I entered the Arlington studio of my previously-mentioned vocal coach and creative consultant Aaron Rae. I remember the look on his face when he first heard the material. All I can say is that the word "atrocity" was used by Aaron more than once back then (and still continues to be used occasionally) to describe my song-writing and performance skills, vocals, and production techniques. It became obvious to me that although the music I was producing was "not totally awful," it was a far cry from Asbury Park and Nashville.
That’s where the story changed. With the rise of the digital era and the creation of the first digital recording studios, the opportunity now emerged to build a high-tech recording studio at a significantly reduced cost (although still quite expensive) that could compete with the big boys in LA and New York. So to make a long story short, I drained my bank account, quit my job, completely remodeled the attic at my Mom’s house, and hired Tom Beier of BEIER-Rhythms Sonic Palace as a Technical Consultant, and set about building a professional digital (Track 37) recording studio. Within a few weeks, and with the help of Greg, Tom and Aaron, we fired up the studio and the Sweet Life album emerged; a far cry from previous efforts. Even Aaron was impressed.
Jeff Healey