Over the last year or so, I've been writing songs from time to time in collaboration with other songwriters, from all over the country, using Zoom for virtual co-writing sessions, as well as emailing lyrics and sound files.  

We'd start in any number of different ways.  Sometimes with a song idea, or a title or partially written lyrics.  Sometimes with some fairly well developed lyrics.  I've worked with someone from Arizona,  a couple of songwriters from California (one of whom is VERY well known [more in a later post when the song is released]), one in the Albany area, with projects planned with people in NYC and Nashville, 

Collaboration is an incredibly rewarding, and challenging process, where the end is greater than the sum of its parts; where the creative input from one person stimulates and propels that of the other.

The songs we've created in our co-wriing sessions have been Contemporary folk - Americana - country -and something I'm calling Folk/Jazz. 

Check out a couple of them on my "Music" page: "On The Other Side Of The World" (which I co-wrote remotely with Maria Borges of California) and "How Does That Sound" (which I co-wrote with Dan Navarro [who co-wrote Pat Benatar's hit "We Belong"]).

A few months ago I bought some pretty good digital audio workstation software, and spent some time getting familiar with how it works (no small task). In the next couple of months, I'll be working on record some songs and doing digital releases on streaming services and making downloads available.  I'll also be and doing some down-and-dirty in-studio and live performance videos. 

If you'd like to know when they are recorded and ready to hear, subscribe to my list on the bottom of this page  /home  and you'll hear as soon as the songs are released. 

Hope you like what's coming...Carl

My songwriting muse has been working overtime and I've got a lot of new songs coming down the pike.  Some were wrtitten some time ago, but never recorded, some finished only a few weeks ago, and others that I'm in the process of writing and editing. 

Songs about trains (yea, mandatory, right - and they'll go hand in hand with the photo on my Home page that I shot in the train yard), leavin' (sure, why not?),  other-worldly relationships, finding strength, and lots of other stuff. Contemporary folk - blues - country

In the next few weeks, I'll be moving into some great studio space where I'll be able to set up some recording and video equipment to record these new songs, and do some down-and-dirty in-studio performance videos.

If you'd like to know when they are recorded and ready to hear, subscribe to my list on the bottom of this page  /home  and you'll hear as soon as the songs are released.

Hope you like 'em.  In my humble opinion there are some pretty good songs comin'...Carl

Some of you may know that years ago I was diligently pursuing my craft as a songwriter and performer, playing my songs in listening rooms, a festival or two here or there, and songwriter circles in New York and Nashville in pursuit of that illusive dream of landing songs on someone else's albums.  I was beginning to have some small successes, with a song on Car Talk, a song scheduled to open a season of MTV's Road Rules series, a song received significant country radio play in Australia that was recorded on a Nashville country artist's album with most of Alan Jackson's band, and things were looking up.

Then I had an auto accident.  Some say I was lucky to get out of my truck alive.  But I wasn't that lucky.  I broke two small bones in my right hand which left me with an inability to play guitar or piano at all for the better part of a year, and for long after that, left me with such fatigue and loss of strength and dexterity in the hand after playing for only a short time that I could not continue in playing.  For some reason, my lyrical muse went out the window.  Always having a need to find creative outlets in my life, I turned to fine art photography, I really enjoyed it, and still do. You can see some of it if you like at carlrubinphotography.com   But something was missing.  It wasn't the same thing as songwriting and delivering a song to an attentive audience.

I'd started writing again some years after the accident, but something was still missing.  The muse wasn't fully returned  I decided the muse needed to be "tested".  So, I went to the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, with the idea of listening to the singer/songwriters there to see if I felt I "fit in" and, more importantly, to play in some of the late-night/all night song circles.   I would up playing some of my songs at song circles which were attended by some really good writers, some of whom were performers at the Festival.  And the reactions I got made it clear that it was time to come back.

So, as they say, there's no time like the present....Here I come...

I've got a host of new songs, some completed, some nearly so, that I'll be working on over the next few months.  Some will be posted on my website for listening or download, some will be debuted in upcoming performances (more on that later), and some will no doubt find their way to a second album release down the road.  And, of course, I'll plug some to other artists.  

Hope you stay with me to see how it all unwinds...Carl