Biography

Contact info:
David Starr
davidstarrmusic@gmail.com
970.640.8088

For more information, please contact:
Kate Richardson, Richlyn Marketing
kate@richlynmarketing.com
615.970.7474


Click here to go to David Starr Catalog

Click here for APD’s Global Radio Showcase Volume 6 - Just Folkin’ Around


THE HEAD AND HEART

Release Date: April 28, 2017

Produced and Arranged by: John Oates
Recorded at: Addiction Sound, Nashville, TN 2/17
Engineered and mixed by: David Kalmusky
Mastered by: Dan Shike

Musicians:
David Starr: Vocals, Acoustic Guitar
John Oates: Acoustic Guitar
Tom Bukovac: Electric Guitar
Steve Mackey: Bass
Dan Dugmore: Pedal Steel
Nat Smith: Cello
Greg Morrow: Drums


1. Edge Of The World (featured track) (3:40)

Songwriter: David Starr
Publisher & PRO: David Starr Music. ASCAP

"Edge Of The World" came about as I thought about how a woman can take a man places only imagined; some of them good and some a little unsettling. It seems that we are always looking for new frontiers in landscape and in relationships. And that drive for change fills us with passion and excitement.
Dan Dugmore’s sweeping steel guitar part in the middle of the song always reminds me of the gals I’ve seen twirling and dancing at festivals and wedding receptions I’ve played over the years…many of them little girls and many of them grown up women, just like in the song!

2. The Head And Heart (3:26)

Songwriter: David Starr
Publisher & PRO: David Starr Music, ASCAP

The Head And Heart speaks to the confusion that love and practicality often cause us. We never know where or when love might come our way, and that can throw the status quo into a real tailspin.
Ultimately, the song puts it back on us to figure out this complicated head/heart stuff. In my mind’s eye, I can almost see one of old “justice is blind” type scales with the head on one side and the heart on the other. Now or never, truth or consequences.

3. California Dreamin' (feat. John Oates) (3:40)

Songwriters: John Phillips, Michelle Phillips
Publisher & PRO: Universal Music, ASCAP

Producer John Oates sent me a text message one rainy night while I was on the road in California. He wanted to know if I had ever thought about recording this classic Mama's and Papa's tune. He felt my voice would be a good fit for it. It had never crossed my mind, actually. But I was intrigued.
Days later, we spoke and agreed that it needed to be done in a very different ways since the original hit version was so iconic. I think the darker, slower version he came up with nails it. And I love singing the song. Just another reason I was glad to have John Oates as producer on the project!

4. Waiting In The Dark (4:31)

Songwriter: David Starr
Publisher & PRO: David Starr Music, ASCAP

Waiting In The Dark was born one day at my dining room table as I thought about some of the casualties of the early 1980's party scene that I witnessed in Aspen, Colorado. A lot of us made it through and many of us didn't.
But the song is also about waiting on another person to change or to come around..to "see the light", regardless of the reason. And the song speaks to that age-old question; how long will we wait for that change to come around?

5. I've Come For You (3:33)

Songwriter: David Starr
Publisher & PRO: David Starr Music, ASCAP

Sometimes, we're afraid of the dark because we don't know what's out there. Other times, we're afraid of (and excited by) what we DO know is out there!
This song was written in response to someone's posturing and denial about a mutual and somewhat forbidden attraction. Pretty primal, I suppose.

6. Dancing With My Pride (3:42)

Songwriters: David Starr, Bob Liepman
Publisher & PRO: David Starr Music, ASCAP

Recorded at Addiction Sound, Nashville
Engineered by David Kalmusky with Nathan Barrette
Mastered by Dan Shike

Bob Liepman and I were at a songwriter's retreat in Santa Cruz county with a bunch of other folks from several countries. After days of rain, power outages and cold showers, the sun shone and this song was born.
The song depicts a lonely man's return to the prairie land of south Arkansas. His heart has been broken by a cold-hearted woman, but time alone provides him the solitude and space to heal and forgive. It's about the healing power of being alone, I think.



David Starr possesses “a compelling voice, something truly special, both accessible and passionate” (Elmore), that has been honed releasing nine albums, touring internationally, and opening shows for esteemed artists such as John Oates (Hall & Oates), The Steel Wheels, Survivor, and more.

Beauty And Ruin, Starr’s latest project is a musical and literary adventure, produced and arranged by John Oates and co-produced by himself and David Kalmusky. It is a collection of songs inspired by Of What Was, Nothing Is Left, a novel written by his grandfather in 1972, which Starr plans to re-publish. “It is like watching a movie,” says Oates. "The cinematic aural landscape visually evokes a classic tale of tragedy, love gone wrong and an exploration of human nature and all its flaws." Beauty and Ruin is set for release in early 2020.

“A collection of beautiful, poetic and somewhat sad songs with a warm and organic production that draws you in and wraps around your heart,” writes Americana Highways of Starr’s 2018 record, South and West. The record follows an acclaimed EP, The Head and Heart, also produced by John Oates and the full-length Love and Sabotage with special guests like John Oates, Richie Furay, Dana Cooper and Steve Cropper.

Starr’s prestige extends beyond the stage as well, having launched Starr’s Guitars in Little Rock in 1998, then relocating to Cedaredge in 2001. Today, the store is such an institution that Cedaredge proclaimed the musician’s birthday as David Starr Day in 2016. He was also instrumental in the 2018 opening of the Grand Mesa Arts Center, an intimate event space brought to fruition through strong community support in Cedaredge, CO. Starr helped design the space in order to attract musicians and visual artists to Southwestern Colorado.

Starr says of his upcoming Beauty And Ruin project, “This project is important to me for several reasons. There’s the family connection through my grandfather’s book, the songs that were born out of his story and the intense collaborative nature of the whole project. I can’t wait to share it with the world