Eric Chase is a songwriter now living in northern California.  Eric started life in southern California, and migrated north (via Hawai’i ) in the 1990’s.  His musical career began with three years of piano lessons, administered under considerable duress by his (it has now been revealed) inspired parents.  On completion of this regimen, at age 10, he picked up a ukulele and began to express himself in earnest.  His first song was the ukulele standard “Ain’t She Sweet” whose origins are obscure even to Eric.  From there he evolved musically to feature “The Girl from Ipanema” which if you Google it will give you an idea how old he actually is.  None of this is of much interest, except for some musical influences from that era which have at least in part shaped his songwriting throughout his life.  These early influences include Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Peter, Paul and Mary, the Kingston Trio, the Everly Brothers, and Elvis Presley.  Acoustic guitar is a sound that Eric has always held in the highest regard, and most of his songs throughout adolescence and young adulthood were written on guitar. 

By the age of 14 he had joined a band, playing left-handed rhythm guitar for the Ocelots in South Pasadena, California.  He longed for the kind of adulation he saw being garnered by the rock stars of the day, especially that hormonally intensive response enjoyed by the Beatles.  He still knows many Beatles songs today, and while beautifully written, none of these had the desired effect, no matter how soulfully he rendered them.

By the middle of high school Eric was playing bass for a local band called the Gross National Product. 

It was this band that gave him his first taste of the exhilaration only successful performers know, as the GNP broke out of South Pasadena and began playing in nightclubs around the Los Angeles area.  Descriptions of these events can be found at: http://www.60sgaragebands.com/grossnationalproduct.html.

Recollections among the band members vary somewhat, it being the 60’s and all.  After two years in the GNP, the quintessential “Opening Act”, the United States Selective Service System led Eric to a fateful decision, to quit the band, and to remain instead a full-time college student in order to postpone his tour of duty, which he is still actively doing.  Somewhat broken-hearted at seeing his performer’s dream die too soon, he turned to songwriting.  He specialized, at the outset, in socially relevant songs of protest, outrage, and such.  But a hopeless romantic will not remain outraged indefinitely, and love crept into the growing stack of songs soon enough.

For the next forty years, Eric continued to write music, while forgoing live  performance almost entirely.   This album presents selected songs from a lifetime of writing.  Perhaps it is time he returned to the live stage.  He seeks your counsel, dear readers, in this regard.  Enjoy Forty Years, and judge for yourselves.

Sincere thanks,

Eric Chase