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If you'd like
to hear some Crooner Classics right now, please check out the Spotify Player at the bottom of this page.
NEW MUSIC COMING, WEBSITE TO BE UPDATED IN EARLY 2021!
.
This CD represents an independent
but professional production. As an independent, I'm counting on the
wonders of email and the internet to market "Crooner Classics." If you
listen to the music (home page) and enjoy it, please consider sending
the website address and a personal note of recommendation to friends
and family who may enjoy the music or website.
Music now available at Apple iTunes, Deezer, YouTube Music, Mauve Music, Omnifone, Xbox, and others!
 
I was born on Long Island, in Oceanside, New
York, back in 19XX (you don’t really expect to know everything)
and lived about twenty miles from the glorious Nassau and Jones
beaches. My parents had a love for music and were always singing during
their daily routines of running a household. (Thanks, Mom and Dad, for
all those melodic duets; weren't you romantic!) In the early days both
parents sang in church choirs and musicals, which began my early
exposure to music. Being gregarious souls, my parents developed lasting
friendships with people I learned to call aunts and uncles, and during
backyard parties would enjoy one another’s company singing into
the wee hours of the morning. When I reminisce about those times today,
I realize that singing was and is a great catalyst for enjoying
wonderful times with friends. Some years ago I started taking voice
lessons and that endeavor has culminated in my first CD venture:
“Charles J-Crooner Classics.”
So, what’s with the boat, you might be
asking? This little baby has been in my extended family since 1962,
where it provided great service and fun running the waters of Moriches
Bays, part of the southern bays network of Long Island. I bought the
boat from my cousin back in the mid 1990s and managed a restoration
process to bring it back to the beautiful classic you see today. Having
already come up with the CD title based on the style of music and
reflecting on what would make for an interesting CD cover, it came to
me that it would be fun to dress up in a tuxedo á la the
crooners of yesteryear--Sinatra, Martin, Davis, Cole, etc.—and
take some shots in my classic boat. As we were tooling around on the
Potomac, we wound up in front of the Kennedy Center for the Performing
Arts and it seemed a natural to pull all the elements together for the
cover. The photo was provided to the graphics team at Disc Makers, who
developed the final concept for integrating the photo, the flowing
draperies, and the period font into the artwork that makes up the CD
cover.
This CD is an eclectic mix of timeless pop,
cabaret, romantic and classic crooner songs wonderfully written and
very lyrical. After the first two songs, "Mona Lisa" and "Danny Boy,"
favorites of several extended family members, the subsequent list of
songs generally covers a romantic theme organized in a fashion that
transports the listener from the darker side of romance i.e., betrayal
(“A Blossom Fell”) and pain (“Crazy”) to the
ecstatic level of unconditional love exemplified in “More.”
What a starting lyric, “More than the greatest love the world has
known, this is the love I give to you alone.” The CD finishes
with an offering of hope in “Over the Rainbow,” “if
happy little blue birds fly, beyond the rainbow, why oh why can’t
I…” As to the boat, what can I say; like the songs,
it’s a classic! I hope you enjoy “Charles J-Crooner
Classics.”
A Note of Thanks!
To Jim Tucker, a wonderful piano player, who—in between teaching
piano, writing music and working with his own band—was able to
find the time to support this project. Jim’s talents on the piano
combined with his ability to make minor arrangement changes on the fly
greatly contributed to the uniqueness of sound and the simple but
dynamic combination of voice and piano found on Crooner Classics.
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