Worth waiting for..... I'm going to sound so old, but back in 1991, when I was just a kid, I was signed to a record label called WW Productions. I had traveled to LA to sing & write background vocal arrangements for Sheila Ray Robinson. Her dad, Ray Charles, hooked us up with Warner Brother's Producer Wayne Vaughn, who is famous for writing "Let's Groove Tonight" and he toured as their keyboard player. He's an amazing writer, multi-instrumentalist and I would say "funk-tastically groovalicious"!
Sheila was doing projects with the Debarges and I was killing time writing music with Wayne in the studio. These weren't my first originals. I had been writing music since I was 12. His wife and partner, Wanda Vaughn from the Emotions, gave me a record deal - actually, what we call in the industry a "Spec Deal". I didn't need any money to put into the project. They'd do everything for my production, but I had to live somewhere, work and eat. And I had no where to go, since I was "living" in Ray Charles' graciously hosted hotel. So I came home and went to college.
Now fast forward, once again, I have a record deal with a small label. I'm recording all over town trying to get my originals done. Scorpio productions, meeting people, no one will really take me seriously because I'm Asian. Everyone put me in their band as a background vocalist and a keyboard player. I spent years writing originals, recording them at various places with different bands, and having none of them actually release. I would waitress to pay for my studio time. There was almost an entire album of Pop music released in 2002, but alas, my partner and I broke apart and I continued on my path toward a new world: Jazz.
When I met Tony Axtell (Axtell Production), everyone who knew me musically and who knew of him, told me that he would be the perfect Producer for me. He was the ultimate one who would get me & push my Ballad & Smooth R&B side. We entered a mutually magical musical place and that relationship has continued on since 2003.
AND NOW, AT LONG LAST, after several turns of events, and years of recording and tossing songs away, and revisiting and revising, we are finally independently releasing a CD of originals that I've written and co-produced with my partner Tony Axtell. Tony has put his signature stylings on all of the tracks, being the incredible multi-instrumentalist that he is, adding whatever the track needed as his pristine ears heard what it called for.