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About a year ago, a producer in San Francisco called me into a studio to sing for the video game Karaoke Revolution Presents: American Idol Encore. Apparently the first American Idol Karaoke game had been a big hit (big surprise there), and they wanted to make another one.

Since the original masters of classic songs can be fairly expensive to license, games like Guitar Hero and American Idol sometimes commission musicians to perform cover versions. The interesting thing is, these covers are meant to duplicate exactly the performances heard on the originals. Now for the musicians that shouldn’t be too big of a problem, but for the singers, that can be a little tricky.

I gotta say it was a riot being a 23-year old kid from Florida singing Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” with a faux British accent. I was standing there in the vocal booth, hearing little snippets of the original song played back in my headphones as I tried to mimic Elton’s phrasing and diction into the mic.

Here’s a cover version of me singing “Tiny Dancer,” only this time, I’m not trying to imitate anybody.

In light of yesterday’s passing of Dave Matthews Band saxophonist LeRoi Moore, I wanted to take a moment to pay tribute to a great musician who helped sculpt the sound of one of the most popular bands of the past couple decades, and one of my favorite bands growing up.

My brother Adam introduced me to Dave Matthews Band (everyone called it “Dave”, for short), back when Under The Table and Dreaming came out in the early ’90s.  I was hooked from the first time I heard “Ants Marching,” and went down to my local Peaches record store to buy the single.  The clerk told me they didn’t carry the single, but suggested that I buy the whole album.  I wouldn’t be disappointed, he said.

And I wasn’t.  From the moment you heard Moore’s saxophone in sync with Boyd Tinsley’s violin, each layered atop Carter Beauford’s mind-blowing percussion (to call it “drumming” just wouldn’t do it justice), you knew this was something different.

Some of the best memories of my youth are sitting in the passenger seat of my buddy Scott’s car sophomore year of high school, him speeding to get back from our off-campus lunch break while the two of us blasted the Crash album.  I’d play air drums on the dashboard, we both sang at the top of our lungs, and invariably our company in the backseat would look on appalled.

Here’s “#41”, my favorite song by one of my favorite bands.  Here’s to you, LeRoi.

Starting Now

Here’s a demo of a song I’m working on…

I wrote it for my brother Adam and his fiance.  They’re getting married next month, and I thought I’d sing this during my best man speech.  That’s right: best man! Well, actually, co-best man (I gotta share the title with Ivan, the oldest and wisest brother of us all).  Hey, you take what you can get when you’re the youngest…