My little album New Dog Old Tricks is arriving at the various streaming services today. I was able to preview the songs on Apple Music last night, and Amazon Music had a note that the album was going to be available starting at 11 p.m. Central Time, so it appears to be on its way to discoverability wherever digital music is streamed or sold.
Once upon a time I fantasized about being a professional singer-songwriter, but I never built up the ambition to take it as seriously as a person needs to be successful at it. Writing and performing music is an avocation for me, and “That song is pretty cool, Warren,” is payment enough. Still, modern technology makes it easy for guys like me to share our music with the world and maybe make a few pennies on the side.
Here is how I described the album for the SoundCloud community:
I wanted this album to sound like me playing a guitar in the living room to a friend, or perhaps while sitting on the bed with my loved one. I can hear every off-note sung and every hiccup on the guitar, but this is the choice that I made, and hopefully the messages come through despite the limitations of the messenger.
As I send these tunes out into the world, I am a 72-year-old widower who has fallen in love again with a lovely widow — hence “Better Late Than Never,” the opening track. My instrument of choice on most of these songs is the 12-string guitar I purchased 50 summers ago with the proceeds from my first job as an alleged adult.
These are all recent compositions with two exceptions. I wrote “Let’s Go Steady” in 1974 intending it as a parody of 1950s doo-wop songs but found as years went by that it stands the test of time as a simple love song. And “Don’t You Worry” is a gift that God gave me in 1986.
My original plan was to multi-track these songs with harmonies and other instrumentation, and I may still do that someday. In the end, with the exception with the finale, “I’m Not Done,” I decided on this more intimate setting.
And so, with love, here is New Dog, Old Tricks.
