A record producer, film and TV composer, songwriter, arranger, musical director, and bandleader. He first came into international prominence as a record producer in the late ‘70s, producing numerous albums and singles, including the GRAMMY-nominated "Sometimes When We Touch" by Dan Hill. He also worked on two GRAMMY-nominated Johnny Mathis albums. Growing a reputation as a duet producer, he has spent the past five years producing duets with such artists as Billy Joel, Willie Nelson, Vince Gill, Natalie Cole, Gloria Estefan, and more. As an artist he released a 15-song album this past March and his top five songs on Spotify have a combined 22 MILLION streams! His projects include “Disney’s Lullaby Album,” which went gold, and more than 30 album projects for Disney over the last 20 years. He had been Vice President of A&R for Walt Disney Records in 2007 and 2008.
"I think it all helps. If someone really has that deep, in a sense, a résumé, that they can draw on, whether it's how they perform the song as a vocalist, whether it's what they bring to it when we're working out ideas for the song and how we're going to record them, I would imagine it's probably better to have someone who's more well-rounded."
"Writing music for children happens to come easily for me and on top of it, it actually feels like about the best thing I can do."
"Every day I would walk down into my studio and I would sit behind the keyboards and I would basically write a song a day."
"My time as a record producer these days, it really runs the gamut, where I get to produce someone like Kristin Chenoweth in May – who is one of our greatest stars frankly, I mean, people consider her to be like Judy Garland – and at the same time I get a phone call from someone who I've worked with a little bit, and they say, ‘Gee, I've given your name to this wonderful talent out of San Diego who's actually a motivational speaker and a broadcaster, but also a singer’."
"It's nice to really go from one project to another and find that the musical challenges are totally different and the music's totally different. It's really fun."
"My job as a record producer, which is frankly my favorite that I do and the one thing I have been doing pretty well full-time since 2001, it really allows me like a film director or TV director to basically go in there, make a record, and then go to another project, and it could be totally different. And it does keep me feeling excited and also, I don't fall into traps as an arranger. I'm able to be fresh in my arrangements."
"When called upon to write for a project or a movie or a TV thing, or when I'm producing someone who wants me to collaborate, I'm more than excited about doing that."
"My musical life is something that I'm enormously grateful for. And the variety in my musical life has been sort of amazing to me."
"I was on an incredible musical journey that was sort of like a treadmill that I could not get off of for almost 15 years, and I'm so proud of it."
"I'm from New York originally, but I moved to Toronto 'cause my brother had been an actor and he wound up there in the early 70s, and my musical career, professional career, started in Canada. So, I'm a Canadian and American, and I hold two passports."
"So, we did this... album called Disney's Lullaby Album and I'm proud to say it went gold and then some."
"I have to tell you that (Johnny Mathis) is the kindest, sweetest man, and the most lovable person to work with... It has been a light in my life to know him, and then to produce him was a dream, absolutely a dream come true."
"Why Couldn't It Be Christmas" (by Kristin Chenoweth)
"Bedtime"