My name is Don Waller, and I’m a musician in the New York City area. Just like every other musician around here, a month ago I was getting ready for the Spring and Summer (and Fall!) seasons, looking at a calendar that was booked all the way to the end of the year. I was in rehearsals with my bands, learning songs for sub gigs with other bands, and generally living the life.

Then Coronavirus hit.

It seemed like overnight before a lot of my friends started doing live streaming sets, online collaborations, and new recordings in small studios everywhere. I was going to do live streaming sets, but by the time I was ready to go everybody else was already going full steam, and I figured why clutter up Facebook with yet another live stream.

I’ve got a small demo studio that I use for recording my original material, but over time an idea came into focus. I got in touch with a couple of friends and asked them if I worked up a basic track for a song would they sing and/or play on it? So far, no one has said no and I started programming tracks.

I mostly let the guests choose which song to do, and that turned out to be a good idea because they picked way cooler songs than I would, a lot of stuff I’d never think of picking. I guess I could have asked for songs along some kind of theme like being isolated or something, but that would have limited the pool of songs – and I wanted the guest singers to pick songs they were comfortable with or otherwise liked. I figured that would lead to better performances.

We’re not in this for the money, but I figured I’d set up a site and put up some charities and organizations that are helping working people keep their heads above water while this pandemic rages.

I figure we can keep adding to this site until a) the pandemic ends and we can go out in public again, or b) I run out of friends. And maybe some form of this project will take shape as a live show if everyone feels like joining in.

In the mean time, enjoy the tunes. And please take a look at the links page and if you can afford to donate even a little bit, give to an organization that you feel will do the most good. Thanks for stopping by, and stay healthy. – DW