Publication Date: February 12, 2022
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I first met Greg Dellorco at Dedham High School in 1980 and got to know him through our shared love of The Beatles. I had seen him play at a post-holiday season event for that year’s senior class. Known throughout the school as DHS’s troubadour, he was asked to play a few songs. One of them was “In My Life”–a tribute to the recently slain John Lennon. I had to know this guy. We formed a quick friendship and started recording home demos of original and standard country songs on my two-track analog TEAC (with sound-on-sound multitracking! Gosh!). We eventually impressed a few people to invest in bringing us into a real recording studio and promptly recorded two Christmas songs one summer and two country/pop songs the summer after (it’s nearly impossible for teachers to find the time to do this during the school year). Thereafter, despite without much success in an industry that seems pretty closed off, we continued recording music on more “sophisticated” equipment I had obtained. These songs stand up forty years later and, for my money, I challenge anyone to find a more heartfelt ballad than “Anymore,” the song I decided to feature on this collection. I am indebted to Greg for turning my head toward authentic country music, making me a more deliberate guitarist and songwriter, and opening my mind to a part of American musical history that goes hand in hand with the the roots of Black music as America’s undeniable contribution to world culture.