And Then We Wrote

Danny Long, Trishelle Long, Bob Lashier, & Todd Chuba

“It also began my own love affair with Danny’s treatments of material from the Great American Songbook. I recently calculated that I heard Danny on at least 2,000 separate occasions. I requested and heard many of the same songs over and over, but never tired of them, and nearly always found variations in tempo, chord changes and lyrical twists that I never heard anywhere else.”
— P.J. Erickson, (Read all of P.J.’s words below the album)

During The Day

The Request

That Was Then This Is Now

The Unicorn

Its Been Years

I Saw The Rain Today

I Can Always Add A Flower To Your Day

One Interlude

I Never Danced To My Own Song

Heres The Day

If I Could See You One More Time

With You

Once In A Lifetime

Quiet Strength

What Are You Doing Next Wednesday

Give Me Two Seconds To Say Goodbye

And Then, Maybe

What Does She See In Me

Just To Be Around

I Can Fool Anyone

I Will Just Take It As It Comes

Same Old, Same Old

We Will Figure It Out Together

If There Ever Was A Me

“The genius of Danny Long was his ability to find the soul of the songs he played and sang.

I heard him for the first time in January of 1992. And his gifts were very clear that first night, on just the second song I ever heard him do. A lady requested “Tea for Two” and my first thought was “ah,.c’mon!” That was what an old friend used to call a “sprightly little ditty.” It was fine for soft-shoe and tap dancing routines, but …. Then I heard Mr. Danny Long’s version. And I realized that “Tea for Two” was, at it’s very soul, a tender ballad with a lovely melody, depicting a classic, day-to-day love affair between two folks who understood the real value of their pairing.

It also began my own love affair with Danny’s treatments of material from the Great American Songbook. I recently calculated that I heard Danny on at least 2,000 separate occasions. I requested and heard many of the same songs over and over, but never tired of them, and nearly always found variations in tempo, chord changes and lyrical twists that I never heard anywhere else. From that first experience to the present day, nearly every time I hear one of those American Songbook selections, my first thought is “Danny did it better”.

Later in the ’90s, he and I would write songs together — my lyrics, his melodies. The lyrics came first, and as I was writing there would be a tempo, some phrasing, and maybe bits of a melody tracing around my brain.

Once Danny got the words, the melodies came quickly, and my tempos, phrasings and melodic snippets vanished. Where I heard ballads, Danny heard gentle bossa novas; my swing became a crooner’s delight; my off-tempo thoughts turned into a jazz waltz. Of more than 50 compositions together, no more than a dozen ended up as I originally imagined. And in every case, I thought “Yep, Danny did it better.”

As always, he found the soul of the music. For which I am profoundly grateful.”

-PJ Erickson