Country · Soul · Americana — Berkeley, California
Singer, guitar player, piano player. I write songs about the things that stay with you — and there's a new record called Rhinestone Tears.
The release
Four singles between here and release day, then the whole thing at the end of January.
The record
Twelve songs, cut at Fool's Gold Studios in North Berkeley. Country, soul and the kind of songs that stay with you.
Hear it first
Singles, pre-order and show dates as they land. One email a month at most, and nothing else.
Out on the road
FAR-West — Portland, October
NERFA — Albany, November
Folk Alliance — Chicago, release week
Listen
A short set. Enough to know whether you want me on your record or your stage.
Projects
Hire
Rates depend on the date, the travel and the prep. Ask and I'll be straight with you.
Guitar, keys or vocals in your band, for a run of dates or a one-off. I learn the set properly and turn up ready.
Remote or in person. Send stems and a reference, get back tracked and comped takes with alternates.
Charts for horns, rhythm section or full band, and a second pen on a song that isn't finished yet.
Original music and sound for circus, theatre and clown. Written to the timing of a body on a stage, not a click track.
Lessons
Guitar, piano and music production. Berkeley or online, any level, from a first chord to a finished mix.
Blues, country, jazz and rock. Technique if you want it, repertoire if you'd rather just play, and the theory only in the doses that help.
Where I started. Comping, voicings and playing by ear, with an emphasis on being useful in a band rather than perfect alone.
Logic and Pro Tools, recording, editing, mixing and sound design — taught by someone who does it professionally every week and wrote the book on it.
I teach this at college level, I've written the textbooks, and Avid have hired me to build their curriculum. You're getting the same material, one to one.
Two books co-written with Ryan Rey for Bloomsbury — Logic Pro 101 and Audio Production Basics with Logic Pro X — plus curriculum written for Avid directly. If you've taken a Pro Tools course somewhere, there's a fair chance you've already worked through something I wrote.
Shows
About
I took piano as a kid, but guitar is the one that stuck. I was fifteen, and what got me was that I could take it everywhere — I went to class with one on my back and played it more or less constantly.
Around the same time I found blues, and I got lucky twice. At the King Biscuit Blues Festival in Arkansas I was mentored by Michael Burks, and back home in Oakland Steve Gannon taught me and walked me into the blues scene. Watching Burks play changed what I thought a guitar was for — he spoke through it, the emotion came straight down the instrument, and he could hold a whole room in one feeling. I've been chasing that ever since.
Both of them taught me something else that took longer to appreciate: how much a music community can carry you. Neither of them had to give me the time. I try to remember that.
I came up on blues and jazz and it still shows in how I comp and where I put a solo. But the songs I write have always leaned country and soul. Harry & The Gold Diggers started from a question nobody asked — what if George Jones had played in an R&B band. Rhinestone Tears is where that finally sounds like a whole record instead of a good night.
The question I keep coming back to, on my own songs and on everyone else's, is whether the emotion actually lands. That's most of what I'm listening for.
Away from my own bands I run Fool's Gold Studios in North Berkeley, I teach game audio, sound design and recording at Foothill College, and I've co-authored two books on Logic Pro with Ryan Rey. Lately I've been writing for the stage too — score and sound design for circus and theatre. I've also spent twenty-odd years building and repairing guitars, which I still do for myself and the odd friend. It's a slower way of thinking about the same problem, and it's changed how I hear an instrument in a room.
“[A line from a bandleader or artist you've worked for — specific beats flattering.]” [Name], [Band or role]
Contact
Dates, sessions, or a question. I answer everything within a day or two.
Or email me — harry@harrygoldmusic.com