Gary York songwriter.
Gary began his career in Austin Texas playing in local bands and learning recording from Bill Josey Sr. at Sonobeat Records. He went on to be session musician, back up musician on tour and engineer on many recordings. After years of working behind the scenes Gary launched this project to break into headliner status, at the same time he had Congestive Heart Failure and had to slow down a bit. For a copy of his psychedelic DVD send 20 dollars to Mellow Morning Music 16056 Stockman Circle Tyler Texas 75703
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Hey, groovy far out space cadets. I'm uploading acoustic versions of all my wild and crazy hippie bohemian jams to show my country folk roots. wheeeeeeeeee!
50 years in the making
Gary York knew at 6 years old he would make a history making musical statement. He would sing out the back door to the trees and bask in the adoration of his faithful fans the way Elvis and the Beatles did on TV. He didn't even like girls and yet knew he would be as girl happy as Elvis was in the movies. In 1973 he wandered into Sonobeat records in Austin Tx and was soon almost living in the studio learning engineering and production from pioneer Bill Josey Sr. During the same era he lived across the street from Ray Benson of Asleep at the Wheel around the corner from Willie Nelson who had just moved from Nashville because he was tired of hearing he couldn't "sing or play guitar" then proceeded to do it anyway, his way. Gary was dating a singer from Jerry Jeff Walkers Lost Gonzo Band and the whole progressive or outlaw country attitude changed his rock and roll forever. "Outlaw rock" or what he calls "Bohemian Jam Music". Emotions riding on waves of consciousness, exciting and soothing at the same time, deep cosmic psychedelic trance music in the style of It's a Beautiful Day or Pink Floyd or Emerson Lake and Palmer or latter Beatles. Hippie head music, short songs with long jam instrumentals. The icing on the cake for Gary's vision was the awareness that he could and would play all the instruments on the concept album he wrote and composed the music to. After seeing Bill Josey's self designed studio Gary realized he would own his own record label to do all the above and this long before Al Gore invented the internet. So, for the next few decades Gary played in back up bands and did studio sessions and learned every area of production, even engineered for broadcast television a while to learn how to make history as one of the elite, the one man bands that really rock. Gary's road show features a band and a wide variety of music from different sources as well as originals, but the music available here is all Gary. Not just as an ego trip showing off for the afore mentioned girls but as an artist enjoying the painting of every color. What artist has one painter do the blues and another the reds and greens. The joy of being able to paint the whole picture the way the artist sees it is more important than the pride of being able to create the work alone. Gary is currently working on music video and instuctional DVDs available direct from the artist. In true Mom and Pop store fashion, Mellow Morning Music is entirely Gary and Janet York and in true American fashion we are trying to stay in business and not end up working for someone else. Superstores do save money, think of Mom and Pop operations as holding on to why folks came from all over the world to be an American. The family farmers. The cowboys and indians. The oklahoma land rushers. A chance to work purely for the survival and future of self and family, to have control of a part of destiny that enough hard word can change. If you work for the man, your extra effort gets you nothing but higher expectations to live up to. I could go the wal mart way and ship my DVDs and CDs off to someone else to market for me but that would leave me less income to support other Mom and Pop operations with.
The recording process itself
I built my studio around a Yamaha AW1600 Digital Audio Workstation, basic 16 track recording studio in a box. I wanted to sound like a bunch of fairly good musicians just playing around, serious enough to be good but loose enough to be fun. Playing all the instruments as well as doing everything else gave me a lot of room to be creative in ways a band would require a lot of rehearsal to pull off, tempo changes and breaks in unexpected places. The musical philosophy I worked with is simple, my audience is into me the person and what I stand for and most don't have a clue how well I really can or can not play. "I don't know art but I know what I like". That is normal in most any style of music, most folks haven't a clue why Eddie Van Halen and Steve Vai can't be compared or why musicians consider them to be more accomplished than others but the audience they reach is a bit different, the esoteric difference between rock and roll and jazz fusion escapes most ears. I have found in my 50 years of showing off that the more technical I get the smaller my audience gets because my heart is harder to see in the mix and people are drawn to their bands and artists and movie stars by the heart more than the talent. Those of us that love Bob Dylan don't care what he sings like because he sings real to our heart. That is those of us that like what he says and all. Those that are pro war and pro police state and pro manifest destiny don't care too much for Bob Dylan or his singing. So, I go for the heart of the matter in my music since I have no voice acrobatics to draw on. When I stand up and sing the song just says to me, "sing the song York and don't try anything fancy, your friends will feel your love and they were your friends before they ever heard your songs." I am Real. I worked to capture this "real" in my recordings. Emotional performance counted more than technical performance, the songs may sound like hell but they feel wonderful to listen to when you are really tuned up to the music. I started each song with acoustic guitar, working extra hard to get the drive and passion in the first track so everything else could just add to it. Depending on the mood I wanted to build I would track drums or bass guitar next, then the other. This would shape the basic song and usually I added the lead and harmony vocals, harmonies being done by a computer sampler stomp box that tunes the harmonies to the chords being played on the guitar. Very realistic and fun to play with. On the bigger band songs I would then add synthesizers and strings, pianos and organs to build dynamics and drive. Finally I would overdub the lead instruments, guitar and or keyboard the way I learned from Alan Parsons and Pink Floyd, everything doesn't play all the time but leaves holes for the other instruments to fill. Some of the songs are long and I consider them modern classical rather than rock or pop. Movements and motifs and themes creating an atmosphere that lifts the audience into it, a collective high known as psycho-acoustic experience. The composer weaves a feeling and emotion into the music. I went for a Bohemian atmosphere, Jam band. It helps to not seek the source and influences in my music, they are widely varied and more arrive daily to Grok in fullness. But the songs here I did everything all by myself on just because it was fun, hope you buy bunches so I can build a bigger studio and write new songs.