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Stephen's Liner Notes:

"When Will I Be Loved?"
This classic written by Phil Everly and originally done by The Everly Brothers was supposed to be on my first CD, but it missed the final cut when we decided to include only one Everly song and went with "Till I Kissed You." I don't know what I was thinking, because in many ways I like this track better. It includes some fine guitar work by Laurence Juber, and the rest of the band is Jim Cox on piano, Domenic Genova on bass, and Michael Jochum on drums. Michael produced the track with me, and it was engineered and mixed by Gabe Moffat at Pasadena's The Firehouse Studio. Gabe has, so far, engineered and mixed all our stuff. I did a little added engineering and mixing, at my own Floral Drive Studio, adding slightly to Gabe's mix. I recorded a third voice, lower than the main two, in a vocal part I'd always heard in my head. So this is how it might have sounded if there'd been a third Everly Brother. I like the way it kind of anchors the vocals.

There's also a terrific Linda Ronstadt version of this song.

"Goodnight My Love"
This one was recorded alone in my home studio, Floral Drive, just me on vocal and guitar. I first heard it done by The Fleetwoods (best known for "Come Softly To Me"), whose version made it to #32 in 1963. I've always loved the song, and learned it about fourteen years ago so I could sing my daughter to sleep when she was restless. It always worked.

I started to adorn the track with a second guitar, bass, and some drums when I realized that it I wanted to keep it simple so it would sound as straightforward as if I were playing it for my kid, or a bunch of friends.

"Skylark"
And now for something completely different. Be warned: this is not rock ‘n’ roll. "Skylark" was written by the great Hoagy Carmichael, famous for "Stardust" and "Georgia on My Mind." This couldn’t be a simpler recording, just me accompanying myself on acoustic guitar (a Martin "Dion" model). "Skylark" is one of my mom’s favorite songs, and I grew up with a Toots Thielman's harmonica version of it playing in our house all the time. "Skylark" has a beautiful melody. I’d been wanting to learn more jazz on the guitar, so I asked my guitar teacher, Fred Sokolow, to teach me the chords. Recorded at Floral Drive Studio in Los Angeles. Someday I’d like to do an album of songs like this.

"Roll Over Beethoven"
This is a live, unrehearsed version of Chuck Berry's classic. It's the first song from the very first session I ever played with the amazing musicians who score 7th Heaven, recorded at The Sound Chamber in Burbank, California in December, 2001. The guys had just finished a scoring session for the show and Dan Foliart, the 7th Heaven composer had invited me to jam with them. I strapped on a guitar, and Dan asked what I wanted to do. I suggested "Roll Over, Beethoven." Somebody said, "What key?" I said, "A." Michael Jochum, the drummer, counted off and we just started playing. No rehearsal. We did it once, and this is it. Laurence Juber is on lead guitar playing a miked Laurence Juber model Martin acoustic. LJ does a perfect Chuck Berry intro and a great solo. I play rhythm guitar on my custom Fender Telecaster, Gary Herbig, who toured with Elvis, is on sax, with the great Jim Cox on piano, and the ever-steady Domenic Genova on bass. Jim Cox spontaneously sang a harmony backup, following me perfectly. Dan Foliart informally produced the track, with the legendary sound engineer, Tim Boyle, mixing on the fly. I did some digital remastering at Floral Drive Studio, but this is still Take 1, unrehearsed, with nothing overdubbed.

These guys went on to record my CD with me, and four of them are now in the 7th Band, a group I play with from time to time.

"Take Good Care of My Baby"
This was originally recorded by Bobby Vee, who had a #1 hit in 1962 with this song by Carole King and Gerry Goffin. There's a very different version of me doing this on my CD, Stephen Collins. This version is uptempo, like the original, with a band, whereas the one on my CD is slow, virtually a ballad. On the CD, it's just me singing with the great Laurence Juber accompanying me on acoustic guitar. What happened was that we were in the studio working on the uptempo version when Laurence (LJ as he's known) kept suggesting that he and I try doing the song more simply, with just him and me. We tried it, and everyone loved it. For a lot of people, it became their favorite cut on my CD.

This version here was recorded mostly in my home studio, Floral Drive. It's the first song I ever recorded on my own and it shows a lot of inexperience. I do all the voices and play all the instruments except the drums. My original version had a drum machine track, but my friend and drummer Michael Jochum, who produced the CD with me, laid down a live drum part before LJ and I switched over to the acoustic version. Michael did the drums at The Firehouse Studio in Pasadena, where we recorded the rest of my CD. Michael's drums hugely improve the track, and even though it's still messy, I've always been partial to this version — my attempt to do a country/pop version of the song.

My biggest goof when I recorded this at home was that I didn't first lay down what's called a Click track. A click track is basically a metronome that puts a steady beat down so the other musicians are all playing at exactly the same tempo. Then you might add a guitar, drummer, and bass player, all laying down tracks to the Click's beat. But I couldn't wait to start recording, so I just sang the song and played the guitar, both on the same track. It came out OK, but of course the beat wasn't perfectly steady. That meant that I had to put in the first drum track by hand, using a drum machine (a device that puts out lots of different kinds of very realistic drum sounds), and plunking out every drum beat by hand. If I had done a Click track, I could have just set the drum machine to the same rhythm as the Click — but, as I said, there was no Click track. When Michael Jochum laid down real drums in the studio, it was terrifically difficult for him, because he had to go by my voice, slowing down down and speeding up ever so slightly throughout the song. It was doubly hard because I do something when I sing called "back phrasing," which means I sometimes deliberately lay off the beat, slightly behind it. I don't know how Michael did it, but he's an amazing musician. Anyway, I've polished it up as best I can, but this track will never be anything like production quality. Still, it has something, maybe because I was so excited to start the recording process.

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