started improvising and creating new arrangements of the songs that I heard. I was about sixteen when I started composing. One of my earliest songs is included in my newest album, "Roots"; it became the title song, and sort of spoke to my beginnings as a writer and as a tortured teen. I played in rock bands all through high school and college, although I didn't major in music. As a matter of fact, I didn't take ANY music classes while I was at Cal State Northridge because I had no faith in my abilities as a musician - I didn't believe that I had "what it takes." I was still in college when I had my first sessions in a recording studio as a backup musician. My major was Speech Communication, which turned out to be an excellent major since I use my speaking and writing skills every day both in running my label and in concert. I feel very comfortable in front of large audiences, which I attribute partially to my major (I was also pre-law!). My first job in the music industry was at Kawai - I worked in marketing for their keyboard division, and then started doing clinics and trade show performances for them. Since then, I've performed and/or consulted for many of the leading equipment manufacturers, including my most recent performances for Alesis at the Winter NAMM show.
KP: How did your first album, "Window to the World" come into being?
Laurie: Larry Kimbell, who was the head of the Economic Forecasting unit at UCLA (and a part-time musician) heard me play and decided to give me the opportunity to record an album for his conference. Before I knew it, it was the beginning of my recording career. It surprised me, probably, more than anyone else!
KP: You do a lot of live performances. What have you been doing recently?
Laurie: This past year I've mostly been performing solo to promote "Roots", including some wonderful concerts for Yamaha on the Disklavier. However, my band performed for several events last year, including two huge public concerts in Southern California. I've mostly focused the band on large outdoor shows, and performed solo in more intimate settings. There's a different energy when you play with other musicians which I miss when I don't get to do it for awhile. However, there are things I can do solo that I can't do with the band, like improvise songs in concert and have closer contact with the audience. I guess I'd like to continue to do both!
KP: Will your next album be solo piano?
Laurie: No! I'm not sure when I'll do another solo piano album. I like to make each album its own entity, and I try not to repeat myself in my releases. I'm hoping to release not one but two CDs this year, and both of them will be quite different, although very compatible, with my current releases.
KP: It's incredible that "Roots" was done with no overdubbing or editing. That's very rare, isn't it?
Laurie: It isn't that amazing to me, but it seems to amaze others. What I've discovered since my first days in the studio is that usually my first take is my best, and if it takes more than a few, I need to come back to it later. I also seem to work well under pressure - I added even MORE pressure to myself when we recorded "Roots" because I had to write about half of the material in the five evenings that we had use of the recording studio, and we consumed most of the first evening with technical things and set-up. Paul Grupp, my engineer and co-producer on "Roots", supplied a creative environment by turning down the lights, lighting candles, and giving me an extremely supportive atmosphere where I could let the inspiration happen. I suppose the most amazing thing to me is that those songs created in the studio seem to be ones which reviewers mention the most - especially the ones I wrote and recorded in just one take. Something incredible happens when a song is created - I don't know that I understand it, but I've read other artists' discussions of it. It's as if the music is already there, and you just have to grab it and let it create itself. I've been improvising for so long that it's pretty much second nature, and creating a song live has become a natural thing to do.
