Words & Miles was first released in Dec. 1990. It was the first of my recordings to be on CD. The recording includes 10 songs compiled by Andy Taub. Andy Taub served as executive producer of the project which was under A - Street Productions.

The Breakdown:
In 1988 I met Paul Bedford at The Starry Plough in Berkeley Ca.. Paul formed a band to back up my songs... David George on Drums, Chris Kee on Bass, and Paul on electric guitar. These are some great musicians and I learned a lot from them.

Paul Rogers was hosting the open mic at the Sweetwater in Mill Valley. He offered to lend his services as recording engineer as well as his studio...Globe....to record some of the songs. This all happened at once.
We recorded four songs, Smiles For the Morning, Kaleidoscope Girl, Heroes Never Fail, and Born Tired, at Globe Studios on a budget of egg sandwiches ( I bought breakfast) . It took two or three days to do all four songs. We recorded mostly live but did have some overdubs on vocals, guitar, and Paul Roger's Keyboards on Born Tired.

When we recorded these songs we had no idea they would be on CD. CDs were a big deal. They were replacing records in record stores. Rain Falls Down and Wall In The Road were recorded in two sessions with the vocal sung live , at Canyon Recording . Neil Jay Young produced these cuts and they went down easy. We also had another song called One Room cut but something happened to that one. I don't know where it is. Anyway, these make up the Breakdown songs. There was no budget for this project. Andy Taub footed the bill for mastering and CD duplication. The musicians all just played, sang and engineerd.

As for the remaining four songs; two of them were recorded at Canyon Recording in 1986 ? Those two are Junk Yard and Your World.
Next Time was recorded by Andy Taub at Muther's Studio in Sausalito. It struck me funny that the studio with the most tracks was used for a solo guitar & vocal song. All the other studios were 8 track. Muther's was 16 track and we cut guitar & vocal - used 3 tracks! Still, Next Time came out mellow, fine, and simple.

After The Storm was recorded in 1983 at Madman Studios in Berkeley. It was put together with a group of songs to follow Graffiti . Unfortunately there was never any way to to get that group of songs out . The full recording titled "After The Storm" features techno pop songs with some human sounding things. After The Storm (the group of songs) is now on cassette. The full leangth recording has a different version of Smile's For The Morning (than Words & Miles) and the same version of After The Storm (the song).

People ask me which of my current recordings I like the most. I usually say Words & Miles . I don't really like any one that much better than the other it's just that Word's & Miles seems to offer more variety than some of the other recordings. In many ways it is my favorite. It has been critically acclaimed as my best and it has been influential in helping me survive.

There was a short time there when many of us involved with the recording thought it would launch all of us ( probably me the most) into something BIG! I remember talking to people in the Bay Area Music Scene in 1989 / 1990 about how chances were good for the BIG DEAL. I don't need to name names here because they have all been thanked on the inner sleeve. They were right in a way. Big Things did happen to me. I wrote about them and they wound on the next recording Heaven On Earth. They certainly were not the big things the band would have liked to have seen. And if I could go back and do some things different I'd probably would have found a different way of winding up right where I am.

Words & Miles by Dave Shepherd G. & Friends.