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tr went from high school graduation to touring with billy joel as opening act.  performing for thousands both as an opening act and for his own audiences, he has been exciting audiences for 25 years.  his recording hits include in you and everything you do and his movie recordings include video love, which was heard in valet girls, and the sound track development for one strike you're out.  his recordings were included in the japanese television series ari deka. he has written well over two hundred songs during his career and had songs published for other artists. he has also produced records for other artists such as the fabulous heavyweights and chris kleeman.

tr has just finished recording his latest full-length cd, keep the faith, set for a january 2002 release, at which time he will start performing in living rooms, across the country, in the true folk tradition, and also in well known acoustic clubs.  

tr is also collaborating with dancer/choreographer, harriett jastremsky, creating and performing music for an exciting, new modern dance piece called...spark...which premiered in northampton, ma in september 2001 and will open in nyc and paris over the next year. tr has just finished his latest commissioned work of songs written, performed and recorded for highland valley elder services to be released as part of a picture book/video presentation for all generations.  

tr continues to write songs for country artists and is represented by larry mckeehan and rainmaker management based in nashville, tn.  

keep the faith, tr's newest release, a collection of 13 songs, is self-penned with the exclusion of one song co-written with his daughter, lindsay fogg-willits.  

tr intended to record, as he has in the past, with a full complement of musicians backing him, but as he started putting down tracks with just guitar and piano, the honesty and simplicity of the songs spoke loudly. this left him with an entirely different vision. 

"i have always loved the layering that goes on in the studio with different musicians contributing to the whole and the wonderful journey to the end result, not ever knowing just what magic might ensue", reflects tr.  

"with keep the faith it took the music speaking very loudly to me to hear the recorded songs differently. i had written these songs over the last 18 months during a time of great personal change and growth and they reflect some of that journey. due to the personal nature of that period of time, it seemed to make perfect sense to let these songs speak for themselves, by themselves, with just me performing them."  

"In the spring of 2000 I spent three months living in an apartment in paris, france and writing seven songs, one of which ended up on this record. It was an amazing experience and one that contributed mightily to this recording. i have since become a part time resident of france and will continue to bring a bit of that je ne c'est quoi to my music!"  

"many people ask me how i write songs. does the music or lyrics come first? how do you think up your ideas? are the songs totally autobiographical?"  

"i've always considered myself a musician first and poet second. i'd say seventy-five percent of the time i write the music and melody first. i'll sit at the guitar or piano and just start playing and see what comes. when i was seven years old, i took piano lessons and hated them. i'd sit at the piano and make up my own rock and roll songs usually based around the chord structure of heart and soul. i loved the sound of the hammers hitting the strings and the louder the better! for many years i wrote little songs and melodies, but no lyrics. in eighth grade i performed at school dances singing the songs of that era, the beatles, stones, dave clarke 5, the searchers, and zombies, just me, an electric guitar and a vocal mic. it wasn't until i was sixteen i started writing lyrics and they were pretty bad. i didn't really develop my lyric writing until i was in my mid twenties. at that point i wrote some excellent lyrics and subsequently songs, but inconsistently as i was unwilling to work each song to the point of high quality. i would work hard at the music and melody, but once I had a lyric, even if it wasn't great, i'd settle for what i had."  

"today, i work the lyric at least as hard as the music. most of my songs are either drawn from things happening in my life or to those close to me. i do write songs with broad themes, but the inspiration comes from something very close."  

"i have always been a huge fan of love songs and always appreciated paul mccartney's writings more than john lennon's. i like a good pop song, the structure with it's melody, but want a lyric of some substance and try to do so within my songs."  

"there are songs such as keep the faith and you love me where the lyric leads the whole song. these are lyrics that come to me while i sleep and therefore have a special place for me."  

"we recorded my 1972 martin d-35 acoustic guitar with a beyer m160 for the bass register and a neumann km56 for the high register. the piano is a kurtzweil 2500 with the classic piano/vox setting. my vocals were recorded with a single beyer 740 or combined with a neumann u87 on some songs and a km84 on others."