Blue Sky Riders

The optimist in me believes that if you do what you love and just work hard enough, success will follow. But the realist in me knows I’d be leaving out a big piece of the equation: LUCK. Being in the right place at the right time. I want with all my heart to believe that every talented person will have his or her day in the sun, but unfortunately, that’s not always the case. I’ve been in Nashville for twenty years and I’ve seen singers and writers far more talented than I leave town because they just couldn’t get a break. Did they leave too soon? There’s a saying in twelve-step groups: “Don’t quit five minutes before the miracle happens.” But what if you’ve given it years and the miracle just hasn’t happened? Do you keep your life on hold for the elusive “you MAY be the next big thing…” Or do you go have a quality life doing something else? (more…)

Ring in the holiday season with Kenny Loggins, Georgia Middleman and Gary Burr!! Reinventing the holiday classic, ‘O Holy Night,’ Blue Sky Riders have taken one of the season’s most beloved songs and wrapped it up as a three-part harmony gift. (more…)

We’re closing in on it. Coming up to the finish line. We have 10 more days before our record is due to be delivered so we can make our release date of January 29, 2013. We’ve been working really hard on it and then a few weeks ago, something happened. The three of us wrote a new song that we liked so much we decided it had to be on the record. Normally, we’d have to go through a major corporation and try to fight for our case, but being the record-label owners ourselves, it took one call to our distributor to make sure we could still make our release deadline. We were told we could. So even though Kenny was in Santa Barbara and Gary and I were in Nashville and we were up against the clock, we made it happen. Got it recorded and mixed. (more…)

Our first headline tour was, in a word, amazing! These past few weeks wildly surpassed everything we’d hoped and dreamed for the last two years, thanks to all of you that came out to cheer us on! We had a blast!

We’re doing it again, tonight, October 18 – and this time we’re playing in a venue near you. Yes, you! Wherever you may be. There’s plenty of parking and everyone gets a front row seat!! No kidding! (more…)

I spent most of my life living hand to mouth when it came to money. Pursuing this dream of music required my taking the kinds of jobs that would allow me to take gigs at night and co-writing appointments during the day. That meant having NO job security. There were bouts in my life when I said SCREW THAT and took a job with benefits but I only gained weight and felt very unhappy because it locked me into a schedule that made me too tired to spend the time necessary to be a good songwriter. Those jobs never lasted long. Since I never married or had children, I figured if I wanted to live life the hard way, that was my prerogative. (more…)

10.1.12 We thought we were in for trouble. The promoter promoted this show basically as a Kenny Loggins concert. Oops. Our management made double sure at every show that people knew that they were coming to hear a new band… not Footloose. The venues were warned they could not expect to get Kenny at BSR prices. When we pulled into town and saw Kenny’s face on the posters today we were afraid we would have an angry mob in front of us.

Kenny handled it perfectly. We came out on stage and did “Feelin’ Brave,” and the audience totally dug it and went wild. Then someone yelled “Danger Zone!” and we all froze. (more…)

9.29.12 Last show at Feinstein’s and it was a blast! Both the early and the late show was awesome. It feels very weird to have it draw to a close after we looked forward and worried about it for so long.

It went better than we had any right to expect. The people who run the room said it was the best show they’d ever had there, (more…)

9.28.12 I have never had to play two shows in a night. I used to be in bands that played multiple sets but this was the same show twice. Only thinking up new jokes kept them from being carbon copies of each other. We had nice crowds for each show and we rocked them equally.

We keep waiting for some big political figure to come to one of our shows. They are all staying here. (more…)

9.27.12 Great audience tonight! Lots of friends in the crowd but it was more than that. Everything worked tonight… jokes, intros, just everything. My friend and comedy mentor, Mark Hudson, was sitting by the stage, so I threw in a spit take or two. Once again we had to cut the show short and be off by 9:30. We cut down the acoustic section, which is a shame because the part really goes over well. We are getting good at timing our show so both short nights we aimed for ending at 9:30 and we left the stage at 9:34. We are good, baby!

9.26.12 They sure make things complicated here in NYC. We couldn’t do a soundcheck for our second show… we had to stop early for another show at 10… interesting parameters. It was total trust in our crew that we would walk onto the stage and it would sound great in the room and in our earpieces and they did NOT let us down. We shaved a little off the show but I know that the crowd got its money’s worth. (more…)