Eric Hill Band
This incredible journey on the path of music started 5 years ago in 2003 when I released my first album, "Mended Again". My idea was to create a collection of my songs which I could listen to and say, "Well I finally got around to recording those songs...".
But those songs had other plans. Other people in the music business, most notably Mick Jones, founder of Foreigner, encouraged me to keep going forward. Mick gave me a quote for my early website as did Calvin "Fuzzy" Samuels, bassist for Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. Mick said: "Eric got it right the 'first time', his many new listeners will appeciate his fresh rock attitude." When Fuzzy heard some of the tracks and found out that I was a teacher, he looked at me and said, "Mon, you been in d'wrong business." That was cool.
So I followed their wise advice and now 5 years later things have come so far and in directions I never could have imagined. The 3rd tour for 2 weeks and 10 gigs in August '07 in Scotland for the Muirhead Outreach Project subsidiary of the Cairn Mhor Childcare Partnership of Fife is the best example of how far the songs have taken me on the path they have chosen. We went to Fife to play 4 times for Muirhead/Cairn Mhor in August 2005, and it was like living in a beautiful dream the entire time. In '06 we played 5 times, it was like a double dose of dream land...touring for 2 weeks in '07 which included 3 gigs on the Isle of Skye and one in beautiful Lochcarron in the Highlands was incredibly meaningful and fulfilling, a much longer dream of triple dose strength which included some single malt doses too. In '07 the project raised more than $20,000 for Muirhead, (all in pounds of course). That's literally putting the money where the mouth is.
My Buddhist practices are interwoven with the songs and with the project. Lama Norlha Rinpoche, my teacher and Abbott of Kagyu Thubten Choling Tibetan Buddhist Monastery in Wappingers Falls, NY, blessed the project in its early days and gave it the Tibetan name: "Nyenpai Lugar Gatsal Ling" which means "Garden of Melodius Song and Dance". The essence of that blessing has become the hallmark every gig we play.
My second album,"Head Over Heels", was released in 2005. It received airplay in a number of European countries.
Now the project is on to the next level in so many ways. I recorded "Second Sight", in January '07 at Tainted Blue Studios in Manhattan, www.taintedblue.com. Drummer Ron Thaler, www.ronthaler.com, was producer as well as drummer/percussionsit. Bob Kaus is on bass and Oscar Rodriguez is incredible on lead guitar somehow balancing it with the busy schedule of his own project www.nakatomiplaza.com. Barry Salmon plays virtuoso guitar on 5 of the tracks and Ali Hassan who was engineer for the recording/mixing sessions is now rhythm guitar and live sound man. Plenty of photos in the Gallery section of this site.
Many musicians have guided me and set the standards which make the project what it is today.
But the most thanks go to the listeners and fans from California to New York and all the way to Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Ireland, England, Scotland, Argentina, Chile, Spain, Italy, France, Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro...who have heard the songs, taken them to heart and brought them into their lives. Here are two most perfect examples:
1. When we played at The Stag Inn in Falkland, Fife in August 2005, an older man approached me and introduced himself as Jock Duncan. He said, "They've been playing your cds here for the last two weeks. I was a shepherd on the Lomond Hills for 45 years...Your song titled "The Silver Shepherd" is the story of my life and I want to thank you for it." Not many things can equal that kind of connection and appreciation of the songs. You can see Jock's photo from this year's tour in the Photo Gallery.
2. Playing at The Stag Pub in Falkland, Fife in August '06, one year exactly from meeting Jock Duncan, I was approached by a young man named Gavin Morton. He said that he had heard us play in '05 and had bought Head Over Heels. He had begun to listen to the 10th track titled "You Can Be" over and over again. He concluded that the song was a message to him that he could be more than a construction laborer so he enrolled at Glasgow University and was taking classes there. He came to the gig specifically to tell me that story. He knew the words to the songs, and when we played "You Can Be" he sang along and it was so incredible...This year '07 Gavin came back from Spain in the nick of time to see us play both Friday and Saturday night at the Stag and I got him to share the microphone on "You Can Be"...pretty great stuff. Gavin's photo along friends Rhonda and Wendy can be seen in the photo gallery too.
3. Now from '07, I have a new chapter to add: We played a private party for Robin and Susan Paterson in Falkland on Wednesday, the 22nd of August. More than 60 of their friends and neighbors came to the party and they listened and danced and applauded and whistled the whole night. But at one point two young policemen stopped in "To make sure everything was under control." But they sat outside the house in their car for quite a while just to make double sure, and seemed to enjoy the songs quite a bit...Many of the folks at the party followed us to the Stag on Friday and Saturday and the result was that I now have 60 new friends I know by name who share the songs with me in a way that can never be equalled. One of them, Peter Massie, took some great photos which are in the Gallery. A return party is already planned for '08. To me this is what the project is all about.
This is where the songs have taken me, and I can only thank everyone, including you reading this right now, for listening to them, and by so doing encouraging me to stay true to the mission and continue on this path. Thank you. Eric