top of page
BIO
ABOUT
In the middle of my first world tour as Jackson Browne's guitarist, my tech brought me a VHS copy of Spinal Tap for the bus ride after that night's show in Cleveland. Earlier that day we had gotten lost in the basement of the arena trying to find the dressing rooms. We had run into the janitor who had to guide us back out. Our bassist, the legendary Bob Glaub, banged his head against the wall mumbling "My life is Spinal Tap".15 minutes into the bus ride and the movie, I yanked the cassette out of the player and it took years to make it all the way through and find the humor in any of it. Now any reference to it cracks me up. Rock Cleveland.
Growing up in Natchez, Mississippi I dreamed of being in a big band, playing big shows with artists I admired. I've been amazingly blessed to have done so, starting with Boz Scaggs, moving to Don Henley's first solo tour, on to Don's friend Jackson Browne’s band to Billy Joel and his politically ground breaking tour of Russia and back around the world with all of them until the tour to end all touring (or at least mine), Peter Cetera's first solo tour, 10 years after leaving Chicago.
In the process I got to play on dozens of albums with those guys and many more, as well as hundreds of TV and film soundtracks, national commercials and demos with some of the best writers and producers in the world.
During that first tour with Don, his co producer and co writer Danny Kortchmar (and huge hero of mine) took me aside in production rehearsals and asked "Do you write? You should write, you think like a writer". I hadn't thought about it since an early experience with the creative accounting methods involved with publishing royalties on a major film end title, but I figured if Danny says I should be doing it, I should. That led to a pub deal with Arista, which became RCA, which became, BMG, then Universal, then SONY, then... crap... who knows. I got to write with some great writers and had some decent cuts. Also got to ghost on some TV and film soundtracks and write some jingles that did OK. Thank you Danny.
Over the last 15 years I went from driving into Hollywood, Burbank and Santa Monica for sessions, to swapping files for guitar tracks and cowriting via the internet machine. That led to sessions for producers Busbee, Mike Elizondo and Greg Kurstin and artists like P!nk, Lily Allen, Carrie Underwood and Kelly Clarkson, plus many more jingles, industrials and cowrites for Kompass publishing. I love the tech, but miss the hangs. To make up for that, I ride my bikes a lot with guys I love hanging out with. All in all, a good middle ground. Keeps me out of rush hour traffic, which in LA now extends from 6AM to 8PM. Solid. But the trails and highways in the mountains above Los Angeles are a different world.
Hit the link below and drop me note to collaborate, just Say Hey, or ride a bike in some of the most beautiful country on the planet.
Peace,
KD
Contact
bottom of page