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Interview with Doug Howell
E.C.: What was your first contact with music? Doug Howell: My first recollections were in church. And playing the old phonograph at home. (78's, no less!) My Dad's youngest sister played piano very well, and played in church. My Dad admired her playing and started all of us kids (me, my older brother and younger sister) on piano lessons at an early age. (Age 6 for me.) I kept going with it, but my siblings dropped it after awhile. I played in church a lot, opposite my aunt. Before each hymn started, she'd lean around the music stand and hold up fingers to tell me how many sharps or flats we'd play it in. E.C.: What made you start music? Doug Howell: Music was an important avenue of expression for me. I don't necessarily come across as an introvert, but I definitely have that side. I sometimes think that if it wasn't for music, I might not be here today. It was a great gift. A great coping mechanism. From the earliest times I can remember, I loved it, and usually wanted to rearrange it somehow. E.C.: Did your parents encourage you to make music? Doug Howell: [See note above about piano lessons.] Even though they weren't musical themselves, they were very supportive. They paid for piano lessons, schlepped me to and from lessons, not to mention all the extracurricular music activities that came along. They drove me up to a couple hours away to lessons sometimes. A year or so ago, I found an old receipt for a set of music books they bought for us kids (that I still have). It was a lot of money compared to what they were making at the time. E.C.: Do you come out of a musical family? Doug Howell: On my Mom's side, the only musical person was back three generations. On my Dad's side, my Grandpa was quite musical. He played several musical instruments, and was in bands and that sort of thing. My Dad's little sister learned to play on a piano they bought off the back of a truck. It was a player piano, and she still has it. I had many lessons on that piano, and my cousins and I spent many wonderful hours singing around it. E.C.: What was the first band you liked that your parents didn't? Doug Howell: My folks didn't really talk about music that much, or about who they liked and who they didn't. I discovered Dionne Warwick at music camp after my freshman year of high school, and I think they thought I was a little crazy about her (which I was). E.C.: Do you remember what your first favorite song was? Doug Howell: Alfie (written by Burt Bacharach). No question about it. One of the most beautiful songs ever written. And Dionne's version of it is one of the most beautifully delivered songs I've ever heard. It had a big impact on me. E.C.: What was the first band you played in and what kind of music did they play? Doug Howell: Of course, there was always lots of hymns and choruses in church. I also played piano a lot for my childhood friend, Jan, the girl next door. She had a gorgeous voice, and we played for lots of special events, PTA meetings, and things like that. We performed everything from "Ribbons Down My Back" from Hello, Dolly to "Ch'il bel sogno di Doretta" from La Rondine (and she could really hit those high notes!). In high school, we added a drummer and called ourselves the Portable Grapefruit. We were wearing some far out color combinations back then, too. We played stuff like "Windy" (Association), "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine in" (Fifth Dimension) and a few of my early (forgettable) originals. E.C.: Did you have a favorite band in your teens? Doug Howell: My favorite artist was Dionne Warwick without a doubt. But from there, I got to know Burt Bacharach, Jimmy Webb, Fifth Dimension, and later, Carole King and Joni Mitchell. I just couldn't get much into rock or R & B or Elvis or the Beatles. (Well, some of the Beatles' stuff I liked.) I didn't like music you could predict. I didn't like knowing exactly what the next melody note or chord would be. Or the next lyric, for that matter. E.C.: What was the first song you could play? Doug Howell: Probably "Hot Cross Buns" (Traditional Kids song) or something like that. The first one I remember winning a prize for was Glow-Worm (Ray Charles). You know, "Shine, little glow-worm, glimmer, glimmer..."? I think I was in Jr. High at that point. E.C.: Was the keyboard always your main and favorite (?) instrument? Why? Doug Howell: Yup. I played trombone and french horn (and glock and E-flat horn in marching band), but keyboards are my first love. Kinda hard to sing along with yourself when you're playing the horn. I like harmony, and with keyboards, you can play the whole chord, not just one or two notes of it. E.C.: Looking back which of your albums do you like best and why? Doug Howell: I think my favorite overall is «Singer in the King's Service» (1979). One reason might be that it's longer, so includes a wider range of songs and styles and themes. We hired some great rhythm players from Nashville on that album, too, which might be part of the reason. E.C.: Is there something you regret from your musical past? Doug Howell: Wish I would have hired someone else to play drums on the first couple of albums. Of course, the point was to save money, but if I could have looked ahead and realized how long the music would be around, I would have tried to find a way. E.C.: When and why did you form Eden Records? Doug Howell: My producer, Mike Kuzma, formed Eden. It included Damascus and Shekinah, too, not just me. He signed me as an artist for his fledgling company, Trinity Sound Corporation, about 1971, and we made recordings together until the mid 1980s. E.C.: Why did Eden Records fold? Doug Howell: Didn't really «fold» as such. The "Hinds’ Feet on High Places" album (which we did with the Royal Philharmonic, based on the popular Christian allegory published by Tyndale House) sold very well---about 100,000 copies---but since about a third of---yes, Christian---bookstores never paid their bill, it was hard for Eden to keep going financially. (That was very discouraging, too, for obvious reasons.) We put out the «The Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction» album after that, but then Mike Kuzma (my producer) got really involved in his «day job» business and I got more and more involved in studio work and did less and less traveling. Add all that together, and things at Eden really quieted down. I think Mike may still have some other things up his sleeve (he usually does) though, so I would not say Eden is done yet... E.C.: How did you find god? Doug Howell: The moment I remember was riding home with my grandparents, who took me to church a lot. There was this little storybook that showed a picture of a clean heart and a dirty heart. On the way home, I was sitting in the back seat with my Grandma. I told her I wanted to have a clean heart. I prayed with her that day to receive Christ into my heart. I'm not sure how old I was, but I was pretty young. Probably about 5 or 6. E.C.: How much is he a driving force behind what you do musically? Doug Howell: How much? All. Even though not all of my songs are explicitly about my faith, they all "revolve around" it. It's the Lord who makes sense out of my life. Every single piece of it. E.C.: The first few lines in the song «Life is like a melody» state that all your problems have been gone since he (god) came into your life. How do you think about that today? Doug Howell: In the last couple of years, my albums have been released on CD. To mark the occasion, I've been updating my original album notes. On most of the albums, I included personal notes on what the songs meant to me, or what inspired them. So I've added some 'revisited' notes on what they mean now. It's been a great experience listening to those songs again, remembering times when I shared them with others, and then thinking about what the words mean now. After all, it's all about the meaning of words. Not the words themselves. Here's a little excerpt to show you what I mean. Here are my original notes from 1975, and then the 2005 notes I recently added via the Web site:
The summer of ’73 I was working nights on a golf course. I would usually change sprinklers every 90 minutes or so, spending the rest of the time by myself in a small room next to the bar. I spent some of the loneliest times of my life in that room, listening to the madness next door. Sometimes I would sneak in after closing and play the honky-tonk piano well into the wee hours. I remember many nights when Jesus comforted me with love songs until dawn. One night he gave me four songs, of which this is one (maybe I can play the other three for you sometime). I’m not very proud of how I wasted that summer, but it has always amazed me how Jesus can change the worst summers into songs.
Psalms 40:1-3; Romans 8:28
2005 Notes:
I think of all the songs on this album, there’s none that showcases my young faith and exuberance like this one. I think it has been the most requested song from this album. It’s been fun listening to it again, and remembering what a great time we had recording it in the studio with everyone singing along. I still remember that little room by the bar, too, but now the word «madness» seems a bit much. Maybe it was mostly just people having a good time. There may have been no more madness on their side of the door than there was on my side. I was a pretty up-tight kid back then, and I sure had a lot to learn. But none of that changes the fact that life is music. Was then; is now. It’s just that not every melody is necessarily as «sweet and simple» as this song might lead one to believe.
"All things work together for the good of them that love him..." I knew that was true back then, but I hadn’t yet lived through very many of those «things» Paul was talking about. Even though I thought I knew, at 21, what a slimy pit was, I didn’t.
So where does all this leave us? Let’s just say that life’s melody is a lot grander than I ever imagined it was. The rhythm is a little more polyrhythmic. And the harmony? Richer than Rachmaninov. So close to dissonance sometimes it’s excruciating. But somehow, at the end of that final movement, I believe it still resolves into peace. E.C.: How much are or were you involved in the christian rock / pop scene? (I was checking the book "Raised by wolves" and did not find anything about you). Doug Howell: [I'm not familiar with Raised by Wolves.] I guess I would say I was a little involved. I loved contemporary Christian music. I, like everyone else I knew, was into Love Song, and Honeytree, Second Chapter of Acts and others. I performed with a few of the well-known artists and bands of the time. As a GNC member, I got to meet and work with some of the producers and artists of the Light Records family. (I remember a wonderful Light Records family concert in LA, where each of their bands was featured on one of three stages. I got to sing an Andrae Crouch song on stage, standing behind Andrae himself!) As a soloist, I met and corresponded with Honeytree several times, and performed a few of her songs very regularly. Her music touched me deeply, and I always respected her. Chris Christian and B. J. Thomas recorded my songs, and I had a sort of business relationship with Chris for a time. I had a couple «near misses», as I call them, too, people from the pop or Christian music world that "almost" recorded one of my songs. As a high schooler, Michael W. Smith came to a GNC concert in West Virginia, and I remember driving around and talking with him a whole afternoon. He loved the Bluer album, and called me years later to tell me that it had been an inspiration to him. We had a really nice chat. E.C.: In the revisited liner notes to «Bluer than it's ever been» did i read that you didn't think that you live past 2000. Why that? Doug Howell: Oh, you know how it is when you're a kid. You think anyone past 30 is ancient, and you can't imagine that you will ever be ancient like them. That's what I meant. I just didn't ever dream I could someday qualify for AARP membership! E.C.: Your last solo album appeared, when I am correct in 1985. Why did you stop then? Doug Howell: About that time, I was going through lots of personal struggles, and getting really burned out from life on the road. That coincided with the rise of new opportunities locally to get much more involved in studio work. I really liked it, and I just started doing more and more of it, and traveling less and less. That was a very rich era for me musically. I did everything from write music for a series of Marcel Marceau short ads, to singing on a Domino's Pizza ad, to arranging and conducting orchestrations for TV sports music spots. (The one people would probably recognize most is the NCAA basketball finals theme, «One Shining Moment,» written by David Barrett. I did the strings for that, and it's played for years, now. In fact, that started a long relationship with David that produced lots and lots of beautiful tracks. So I guess that's the short answer. The long answer is, well, long! I plan to tell the long story in my «notes revisited» for that last album (that was «The Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction»). I'm hoping to post those within a month or two. I'm also hoping it doesn't turn out to be the last album. E.C.: How do you make a living? Doug Howell: In recent years, I do music on the side and work in information technology at Borders Group (of Borders Books & Music fame). I'm an information architect there, where I get to be creative, and where a music degree is actually an asset most of the time.
That long period of increased studio work I mentioned led me to a dream job: being composer at Media Station, producer of animated storybook CD-ROMs. I wrote the soundtracks for a dozen different titles, including If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree, Lamb Chop Loves Music, and even Barbie as Rapunzel. That was a great experience. I wrote background music for each digital «scene». Each scene had hotspots that broke into animation when children (or adults) clicked on them. The animators handed off the animations to me. I wrote and recorded the music soundtrack, then the sound engineers added sound effects and dialogue to create the finished product. In some ways, it was the closest I may ever come to writing a movie soundtrack (which I've always wanted to do). Actually, I did arrange and perform on the soundtrack for a documentary, come to think of it. (It was about Norman Vincent Peale.) Two recent projects are close to my heart right now. One is Music Toolbox, a CD and companion music book I worked on with a great friend of mine, aimed at giving teachers the tools they need to teach music to kids with cochlear implants, who may never have heard music before. The other is a soundtrack for my nephew's magic and vaudeville act based in London, England, called The Amazing Norvil and Josephine.
Not that I don't wish I could perform as a soloist more sometimes. I do perform with Ann Doyle, a local singer-songwriter, for one or two gigs each year, and contributed to her last album, Ready To Move. And I still sing in church services! E.C.: If you could write the soundtrack to a already existing movie. Which one would you chose and why? Doug Howell: Hard one! I really love movies, and have lots of favorites. One that comes to mind, though, is Shadowlands, based on the life of C. S. Lewis. I love George Fenton's beautiful score, and I'd sure consider it a privilege to work on something like that. Or a beautiful coming-of-age or romantic tale like Cinema Paradiso. A movie about someone I really admire; something with a message that goes beyond entertainment. I really enjoyed the documentary on Norman Vincent Peale I helped score, for instance. A film score is so much work, I'd want to be able to look back and not regret all the time spent. To feel that it somehow helped make the world a more beautiful place. E.C.: What is the most fun of all things you do (Multimedia, Music, Design, Programming, etc) Doug Howell: Even though I enjoy many, many things, I think working on music: writing, performing, arranging, recording, conducting. That's the best. That's where I feel like I'm contributing something to the world that no one else could do in quite the same way. It would be great if we felt that way about our daily jobs all the time, wouldn't it? But with music, it just comes naturally. E.C.: What was your biggest success, personaly and business wise? Doug Howell: It's tempting to say that the biggest success was the period when I was traveling, giving concerts, connecting to thousands of people on the road and recording albums; but I've learned that nothing exists in a vacuum, and things aren't always what they seem. That part of my life was only a part. A wonderful part, yes. I made friends. So many wonderful friends. Some of those friends I wasn't even aware of at the time. Others were an obviously big part of my life and my faith journey. Nowadays, every few weeks, I hear from someone I met back then, or someone who got one of my albums from a friend, or someone who wore out their album and decided to search the Internet to see if he could find it... Last week, I received a $0.33 check from ASCAP for a performance of «Just As I Am», a track from my very, very first album, «Love's Lights» (1971), an album I'm shocked to find out anyone even has, let alone would play on the radio! Then I got an order from a guy in Tokyo who wanted all my albums in LP format. Then I received an e-mail from you, who somehow, for some reason, remembered my first solo album kindly. Every time that happens, I'm so humbled. To think that God could use someone so imperfect to actually touch another human being with his incredible, life-changing love. That's the success, and it's more God's success than mine, but one He's graciously allowed me participate in. And that's the point, really. God's the one who judges our success, not us. Not each other. Things that look like big successes to us may not be, and other things that look like anything but are somehow the most important. Maybe the biggest purpose for my life will be revealed in something that happens, or someone I will meet, tomorrow. So stay tuned! E.C.: When will we see a new Doug Howell solo album? Doug Howell: Believe it or not, I am hoping within a few months to start pulling something together... I've already started thinking about the track list. I made a big project list on my last birthday, and I can actually imagine maybe two or three albums of different types. Last year was a pretty rough one for my family, as we lost both my Dad and my Grandpa. It really makes you realize that you'd better stop with the excuses and just get on with things. I still have many songs that I'd like to record, both past and more recent ones. And then there's the printed music, too, which people consistently ask for. Let's say it this way: Lord-willing, you haven't heard the last of me. A big, heartfelt thanks to all the friends who have never stopped listening!
EAR CANDY:
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Intro: