These are composers, songwriters, performers, and other artists who have had major influence over my work. Honestly, not all of these are necessarily positive influences...

Benjamin Britten
It was "Rejoice in the Lamb" which first captured my attention. Later I would learn of the great brilliance in his many compositions. Beyond that, I have always admired the fact that his pieces have a distinctive voice, recognizable as his own, a signature language threaded throughout the works.

The Carpenters
Karen's voice was immensely seductive, but it was the arrangements, song selection, and care in the record-making process which have stuck with me through the years.

Charlie Chaplin
Chaplin improvised everything, working out ideas in front of a camera then editing the best bits together. Working without scripts forced him into an organic style of story-telling which often started with a potentially comic situation, but always ended up as a study of character. Beyond that, he made "City Lights", a brilliant film and the last great silent movie, long after talkies were commonplace. He knew that good stories were about people and transcended language. His work was loved literally throughout the world long before the advent of the global entertainment economy.

Bill Cosby
No, not the Bill Cosby on TV these days, nor the 80s loveable every-Dad, nor the spy, but the fellow who recorded a classic series of comedy albums before he ever appeared on TV. A great comedy routine follows the same arc as a great piece of music, and Cosby had this mastered early in his career. Seek out "Tonsils" and "The Chicken Heart" for amazing examples of the comedic form, something which must be understood before good music can happen.

Larry L. Fleming
The first time I heard him conduct a choir I was mesmerized. Over time we became friends and I had the marvelous opportunity to work with him in stewardship of the National Lutheran Choir. His brilliant mind, pervasive musicality, and vulnerability set the standard for choral conductors, even though some have called his work "old-fashioned". He taught me that everything is music, and that music always comes first.

Eekaterina Gordeeva
She was part of a magical pairs skating team which demonstrated a type of synchronicity very rarely seen anywhere. But when that ended suddenly, she had choices. She chose to begin a new career, and it hasn't been easy. But I've seen her skate, and it is a most beautiful thing. Grace and poise are her trademarks, as evidenced by her unforgettable "Smile" routine (to a song written by another of my favorites, Charlie Chaplin). I've always found figure skating to be the almost magical creation of art from geometry, line and balance -- three of my favorite things. Katia gets all of that right, then adds heart.

George Harrison
People remember him for a handful of Beatle tracks and a couple of solo records. I'll always remember him for "Blow Away" and "Love Comes to Everyone." His gentle persona translated into song so effectively, and his best songs are among the best of the 20th century.

Jim Henson
It's wrong to fault his son for trying to continue the franchise, but there's no denying that Kermit just hasn't been the same since his first voice disappeared. Henson was fiercely creative, never willing to settle for banal, and intent on pushing himself to the very limits of his capabilities. Unfortunately, it killed him. But his final work, "The Dark Crystal," stands as a monument to who he was because it was so unlike anything he'd ever done before. If you've never seen "Fraggle Rock" or "Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas" or his appearances on the early Saturday Night Live, seek them out. Then you will understand why I admire him.

Alfred Hitchcock
Attention to detail is really what I have learned from watching Hitchcock movies. Every frame means something, and every little thing probably plays some role in the plot. beyond that, Hitchcock had a knack for creating complex characters, something I have always valued.

Billy Joel
Some of the best pop songs of all time came out of this man's piano. He faded, to be sure. And his recent attempts at writing something more "important" are a bit misguided. But anything on "52nd Street" or "The Nylon Curtain" is as clean and whole as pop music gets. He may be the last of the great three-minute songwriters.

John Lennon
I became a fan during the summer of 1980 as people where I worked began to buzz about his new album. So it was only after he died that I got to really dig into his catalog. I never really thought politics showed his best side. I go more for his stuff on "The White Album" or "Mind Games". In the end, I think his directness is what affected me most. I'll never forget his advice about writing songs: "Say what you have to say, make it rhyme, and give it a backbeat." When I inevitably discover that I've been a little too clever, his words guide me.

David Letterman
A gentleman in a world of weasels, Dave has always avoided the cheap shots. His comedy mocks just about everything, but maintains a strong sense of self-mockery through it all. Never take yourself too seriously.

The Michael Loonan Band
Mike is a great songwriter (for samples, visit my Production page), but playing in his band taught me as much about music as I've learned anywhere else. We played for friends, family, well-wishers, ill-wishers, drunken groomsmen, Badfinger fans, and so many other audiences. But I learned how to play and sing at the same time, how to remember 100 or so original songs and call up any one on a four-count notice, how to play 12-bar blues in any key, and how to make people dance. Our "Please Mr. Postman/Crocodile Rock" medley always brought down the house.

Steve Martin
Back when he was a wild and crazy guy, I was young and impressionable. Steve Martin made quite an impression. We used to listen to his comedy albums on 8-track and laugh and laugh. But there was something valuable buried in the anarchy: timing and rhythm and a strong sense of craft. That stuck, and has been born out through the years as his later works have revealed a much more thoughtful artist.

Paul McCartney
I knew who Paul McCartney was long before I knew about the Beatles. In addition to having written one of my favorite songs, "Here, There and Everywhere," (which I knew first through a recording by Emmy Lou Harris) he was the guy who played all of the instruments on some of his albums. I set about trying this for myself simply because Paul had done it. Though I was never as successful as he on all of these instruments, I developed a working knowledge of each one, could make a musical sound, and had to figure out how to record them together using only two cassette decks. That led directly to becoming a recording engineer and later an arranger. And let's not forget that his best songs are masterworks.

The Monkees
After-school TV was never the same after this show hit. I thought they were funny, but I was really interested in the songs. Eventually, the boys wrote them themselves -- with decidedly mixed results. But in the beginning it was all the greats turning out one hit after another on their behalf. Those are the songs, "Pleasant Valley Sunday" and "Valleri" that I dug the most. More >>

The Osmonds
It was never hip to like these guys. They were, after all, a toothy reformed barbershop quartet. But I was only eight years old or so when their Saturday morning cartoon debuted, and I instantly loved the songs. Later we would acquire "Crazy Horses" through the record club, and I would discover that they wrote these songs themselves. I know that people hate them, but these songs are amazingly well-written. Much later I realized that they relied on the song models of the greats, which explained their utterly perfect forms. This may be why people hated them. Just like the barbershop harmonies, the songs were too perfect. Sloppiness is much more interesting. I realize that, but I still love these songs.

The Partridge Family
Like the Monkees before them, the band was fabricated for the sake of television. But the songwriters were pros, and the records turned out amazingly well. It sounds like somebody (thought probably not David Cassidy) had fun in making these records. More >>

Leroy H. Prescott
My parents had me singing show tunes before I could walk. They tell stories about how I simply wore out the "Hello Dolly" record from so many playings. We sang all the time, including on every single car trip. Many of the songs we sang then still remain in my list of all-time favorites. But when I got older, I discovered that no one else had ever heard of some of the songs I counted among my favorites. It turns out that we often sang something my dad had written. He introduced me to the greats, wrote some great ones himself, and in the process instilled in me a hunger for new music. For these things I will always be deeply grateful.

Prince
In 1983 I walked into the music listening lounge at Coffman Union on the University of Minnesota campus. Here you could borrow a pair of headphones and plug into one of 12 jacks next to a table or couch in the lounge. (This was before the advent of cheap personal walkmans.) I didn't know what I would hear, but stumbled across the first strains of "1999". Here I was living in Minneapolis, and I'd never heard of Prince. What I came to admire was a prolific creativity with a distinctive style. To this day, I can pick out a new Prince track within seconds. Add to that virtuosity on many instruments, a playful sense of experimentation, and a cheeky sense of humor, and you have the artist who captivated me through most of the 80s. I stand by my belief that "Lovesexy" may be the greatest album of the rock era -- certainly the greatest record that hardly anyone has heard. It was all downhill after 1990, but the preceeding 12 years were amazing.

Rodgers and Hammerstein
This was crib music for me. I cannot remember a time when I did not know "Climb Every Mountain" or "You'll Never Walk Alone." The first show I ever worked on (as follow spot operator, at age 10) was "Oklahoma!" I have said for a long time that anyone wanting to write melodies must immerse themselves in the music of Richard Rodgers. He had the ability to craft a perfectly balanced melody for just about any situation. And Hammerstein's lyrics, which trip off a singer's tongue effortlessly, were models of efficiency and flawless examples of "musical words".

Stephen Schwartz
He's written a lot of tripe, but his score for "Pippin" was one of the first scores I ever admired, mainly for its catchy tunes which serve a story-telling purpose. Of course, "Godspell" also ranked high on my list, and the songs for these two shows form a significant part of the soundtrack of my younger years.

Paul Simon
Seek out "Wednesday Morning 3 A.M." to find out why I love Paul Simon's music. Then look for "Flowers Never Bend With the Rainfall," found on "Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme." These are the songs which grabbed my attention and have never let go. His hits are classic, but it is the second and third tier of songs which say the most about a songwriter. His throwaway classic, "So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright," still mystifies me with its effortless chord shifts and positively Prairie School lyrics. There are a hundred more examples, but you'll only find them tucked between the hits. This is what I learned from Paul Simon: the greatest songs may not be the ones selling the records. More >>

Stephen Sondheim
I cannot do justice to my admiration for this composer in one paragraph. Sondheim perpetually raises the bar for composers and lyricists of the theater. I think he is fearless and brilliant -- a rare combination.

Sonny and Cher
Well, they had a funny TV show when I was a kid. And like all such shows, it was the music which actually kept me watching. This is yet another case of artists getting great songwriters to write for them.

Andrew Lloyd Weber
Admitting that Weber is an influence does not come easily. For the most part, I detest his work. But I will admit that occasionally his melodic sense gets the better of me. "Memory" grabbed me just as it did everyone else, and "Pie Jesu" must be recognized as a classic. But the influence mostly came from "Jesus Christ Superstar," a work which I can still sing from memory -- start to finish. The movie version was especially inspiring because it attempted to push into a new movie musical style which was brilliant but never really caught on. The show itself is filled with memorable -- and highly singable -- music, and it touches a subject dear to my heart. Unfortunately, Weber decided that he wanted to be Important and Rich and hasn't written much of merit since.

Robin Williams
He showed up out of nowhere and turned comedy upside down. That's really hard to imagine -- and even remember -- some 20 years on. But stream-of-consciousness comedy was perfected (if not actually invented) by Williams. A friend of mine used this metaphor: Most of us have curtains between the various parts of our brains, separating and controlling all of our impulses and thoughts. Most folks have thick burlap curtains preventing the various parts from touching at all. Creative types usually have only gauzy curtains so one part can get glimpses of the others. Williams, she said, had no curtains at all, allowing all parts of his brain to work in concert at all times. Now, he's an Actor, and while that's OK, it's really his wildness in the early years which has stuck with me.

Meredith Wilson
"The Music Man" has been a part of my life for a very long time. Musically, I admired how two very different songs could be sung together. Now it's a pretty well-worn device, but it piqued my curiosity, and I have tried many times to accomplish it (for an example, listen to "Walk In Peace"). Later I learned how the show came to be, and how Wilson tried for nearly a decade to get the show produced. His persistance paid off! True, he never really did anything else, but giving us this show was more than enough.

Frank Lloyd Wright
A great architect works with lines in the same fashion as a great composer. Wright attempted to create beautiful physical spaces in the same way composers try to create beautiful aural spaces. Beyond that, his work is distinctive and uncompromising. In a sense, I even admire the fact that most of his buildings eventually fell apart for one reason or another. Beauty, I have learned, is very fragile, and can be extremely difficult to achieve. But as we see in his major works, the effort pays off. Beauty is essential to the soul, but not all souls realize it. Wright did and made it his goal to show others. More >>