As a young man coming of age in the 70s, David Bartlett began an intense relationship with music and the guitar. While attending Indiana University, “Bart” spent hours every night in the log cabin where he lived near Bean Blossom learning to play, studying music theory, gaining understanding of how chords can go together… and making up songs. Some were songs with lyrics, some were instrumentals that reflected his interest in classical guitar and Latin-flavored music. The music featured on Lead Your Life By A Song was written between the fall of 1974 and 1979.
Dave met his wife, Robyn, in 1978, children followed in 1982, and the responsibilities of being a family man naturally took center stage. Robyn, however, was a talented singer in her own right, and so arranging became the mode of choice for several years. His career in education became the focus of his life’s work. Through that experience he also accompanied many students at Harmony School where he taught from 1987-1998. Many of the students performed individually and he worked with staff and student group songs in the annual Holiday Follies programs.
The decades passed by, and in the summer of 2013 David had a meeting with guitarist Jeff Foster, who was organizing with Ivy Tech Community College – Bloomington and the Brown County Career Resource Center (where Bart was the director) to bring Foster’s guitar and banjo classes to the CRC facility in Nashville, Indiana. After the meeting, Bart asked Jeff to stay a little while, and the two began discussing Bart’s early interest in the guitar. One thing led to another, and before long Bart was taking weekly guitar lessons in Jeff’s studio in downtown Nashville.
During Bart’s lessons, Jeff worked with Bart to rejuvenate his guitar chops, and he got to hear Bart play some of his early compositions. Impressed by the quality of the songs and instrumentals Dave had composed 30-35 years earlier, Jeff started recording Dave’s music as a sort of informal chronicle of his work, with just the two of them laying down the tracks. Dave played acoustic and classic guitars and sang, while Foster played acoustic, classic, electric guitars, bass, guitar-synth and handled the drum programming. It was all done just for the fun of it… but they started hearing potential for “something more” hidden within the compositions.
Over the months, the project morphed into something much bigger than either had original planned. They decided to pull out the stops and make a CD of the music, and enhanced the production with the additional (and awesome) talents of local musicians Carolyn Dutton (violin), Slats Klug (keys, squeezebox, harmonica, synth), Trish Rieke (percussion), Mel Chance (clarinet), Amanda Marie Webb (keys, vocals), and Suzette Weakley (vocals). Foster & Dutton also contributed as co-writers on what Bart calls “the three Latins” (Brasillica, Moorish Mood Swing and Robyn’s Rhumba… all instrumentals), but otherwise all the music was written by Dave.
Lead Your Life By A Song is a testament to
seizing a dream and not letting go, and
proof that it’s never too late to follow your heart
and reach for something you really want!
