All through the site there are lots of Nortunes songs and arrangements in multiple guitar tunings (Standard, Open G, Open D, dropped D, Open Am, Open Em) including vocals with orchestration, combo or guitar accompaniment and solo fingerpicking, The Heeey Baby Days of Beach Music/(UK Northern Soul) is also represented with our 1960's beach music band Oxford Nights. When you see a blue font that looks like a title to a song such as "Heartsfull Town" you can click on it and be entertained as you come back to this tab and continue reading. All songs are free to listen and download.

And this is one by request: Nortunes arrangement of  "American Trilogy" for solo acoustic guitar.

Nortune Fried Picking: The NFP CD cover is at the top of this page with artistic credits going to Henry Wynn. He's also one of my inspirations to want to finger pick in the first place. The entire NFP collection of Nortunes originals in multiple tunings is available to listen and download here.

But wait there's "Mo'". Here is a song from a yet unpublished collection called "Mo' Fried Picking": "Nags Head Rag" which was created several years ago sitting on the porch of a beach house on the Outer Banks.

Growing up in Augusta/CSRA: The Nortune story of course starts with  my family especially my Grandma Battle who was my first music teacher,  all of my "musical brothers of the southern roads" especially those of the Oxford Nights, my fellow guitar buddies of Augusta who shared many licks and chords, bunches of guitar students (you can learn a lot teaching others), all the folks from churches (you can learn a lot from God), countless volunteers who worked/work with Habitat for Humanity and all those folks I worked with in my day job (many blessings).:

Augusta and the Central Savannah River Area (CSRA) has small town charm and friendliness but big town attractions such as a university, an academic medical center, a military base, a national nuclear facility, churches, many wonderful golf courses and all of the amenities that support the culture and the arts. Growning up in the CSRA gave much fodder for someone with a song writing obsession.  The CD/song collection Heartsfull Town, Panama City, and beyond...    has nineteen songs related to places and experiences in the area.

Augusta, GA is mostly known around the world as a golf mecca. But,  Augusta is not only home to the greatest golf tournament in the world, it also is the home of James Brown, Sharon Jones (of Dap-Kings), Jessye Norman, Steve Morse, Wycliffe Gordon, T. Hardy Morris (and his mother Lillie Hardy Morris whose breadth of multi field talent gives her the title of "Renaissance Lady"), Larry John Wilson, Terri Gibbs, Sammy O'Banion, Alan Cooke, the men of Lady Antebellum and many more. A special shout out goes to my buddy Carl Purdy a talent extraordinaire.

 From early on music was always in my life including singing church hymns, learning/playing guitar with neighbors, playing trumpet in school bands, playing guitar in garage bands, songwriting, teaching guitar lessons, playing in bands going "on the road", recording, etc. As much as I wanted to dedicate my life to music, circumstances arose that were perfectly clear... get a day job. It was pure luck that I faked my way into a computer career in 1972. We were doing punched cards when I started and 42 years later when I retired... well what do you say?  For me it created an unforeseen opportunity for a dual path computers and music (article circa 1987).

I'm not sure if its the water from the Savannah River or musical serendipity. I just know that I grew up playing and learning from a wide web of great guitarists and musicians. I learned piano from my Grandma Battle a long time teacher and church pianist. I had private lessons on trumpet from Antonio J. Dwinga a graduate of Julliard's.

And ultimately whether I sat down with them or "stole" licks, patterns and chords, I've had many guitar teachers/buddies in the Augusta area. This includes Alan Cooke, Henry Wynn, David Fletcher, John Wilson, Bert Sansom, Bob Kline, David Andrews, Hank Sulzycki, Van Haywood (writer of how to play Christian Songs on Guitar and father of Dave Haywood of Lady A). 

Bert and Hank were also members of Wade and Co along with The Broome brothers (Wesley and Charles) as well as multiple drummers including Jeff Stone (one of my favorites).   More on Wade and Company will be added later.        

The list goes on with Jimmy Campbell and his father Eddie, Pete Fletcher, Paul McCranie, Emory Howell,  Tommy Leopard, Bruce Deas, Robbie Ducey, Frank Brittingham, Pat Blanchard, Freddie Williamson, the Gowers brothers, the Brantley boys, the Pittmans (Tony, Toby and Tanney), Frank's brother Johnny Caneda, Leroy LLoyd, Steve Morse and many others. Thankfully I am still learning from many of these guys when I see them but a special shout out goes to my bro' Alan Cooke who along with Warren Twiggs (mandolin) we get together picking and grinning as the Alan Cooke Trio on a regular basis.

 We were incredibly lucky to be in Augusta. Many of us played in multiple bands and multiple styles of music. I started out in a four piece band made up from folks I met at church. After several iterations of that I found my way to be a part of Sammy O'Banion and the Features. Sammy was a great singer, band leader and personality. He helped me grow up and taught me how to be a professional. Sammy has recently published his autobiography here. Its a very good read. After Sammy the road led me to the Oxford Nights.

Oxford Nights: "Our mother was our music our father was the road".  The Oxford Nights band was a southeast regional Beach Music/Northern Soul group from Augusta, GA the home of James Brown and soul. We were a regional "one hit wonder" with the song:   Oxford Nights: "I'm Such a Lonely One"  documented as one of the songs on the accompanying CD of the book "The Heeey Baby Days of Beach Music". The book is out of print now but at one time the book and bands in the book were honored in an exhibit and the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. The Oxford Nights Vinyl 45 and song is still popular for DJ's and dance clubs in the U.K. as Northern Soul and in the "Beach Music" scene of the Carolina's. 

As of this writing the recording was done about fifty years ago (yes that is 50). Trumpeter and good buddy of mine Pat Hegler has been in contact with some folks in the UK. He and I are working to get some of the remaining members together for a reunion of some sort. Pat's a cool dude and is working on putting together some stuff on the social media side of the web. For more of the story click here.

Nortune: Each of us had an alternative name given by our friends. They were mostly humorous but somewhere in my teen years the name Nortune came along.  And all it took was "that" one recording session for me to go heads down into songwriting, guitaring, producing and etc. It was a natural path to wrap all my dreams into one quadrant called Nortunes.

I had already started writing songs at an early age. My fourth grade teacher told me I had a knack for writing and my trumpet instructor gave me confidence with my music abilities. With the success of the Oxford Nights I was asked teach guitar lessons at a downtown music store when I was 15. I would just teach the songs we were playing in the band or on the radio. One of the main components of my teaching method was finding a way to compliment each student like had been done for me. After years and years of writing the basic stuff down on manuscript paper for the students I was able to create four volumes of guitar instruction on computer.

After that there was more learning, more bands, much more songwriting, solo fingerpicking, lots more teaching, writing guitar books, youth worship leading (In His Steps), congregation hymn leading, community theatre orchestra and performance, and Habitat For Humanity. Without the support of my family, many other families and friends none of this would have been possible.

Recording: Along the way there were many experiences, lots of learning and learning again and many hours of recording. Being a songwriter I had to come up with a way to make my demos inexpensively.  I started with an eight track recorder, cassette recorder, DAK reel to reel, Teac reel to reel, Tascam reel to reel, Fostex half track, VHS hi-fi two track and now of course digital. The demos eventually were grouped by type and some of the collections became CD's. Besides the 11 CD's on the mantle there are 3 more collections in the "can" and multiple singles. Here's a Nortune song in the can "Magnolia Love".  The Nortune phone has about 200 recordings. As time and space allows we'll be adding some additional favorites to the site as well as YouTube. But I also hope to continue to learn a lot of new things.
Except where noted all Nortunes songs were arranged, produced and recorded by Nortune at Nortunes Studio. Orchestrations were sequenced using various midi digital keyboards and sound modules. If you would like to know the details of any production send an e-mail. All songs with blue hi-lite on the site are free to listen and download.  All other songs are free by e-mail request.

CSRA and the South:  Many of the Nortunes songs and lyrics are about living and growing up in the CSRA. See here for a collection of originals. Many of those were written about just regular old good times along the way. One experience gave me someone else's song to enjoy for a lifetime...  My  brother and I went to Bell Auditorium somewhere in the mid-sixties to see the one and only Louis Armstrong. Brother played trombone and loved not only the great "bone" bands of the 40's but also Dixieland. Of course with me playing the trumpet you can imagine how much we loved seeing the greatest Dixieland Band of all time. "Louie" of course was not only horn but also voice and personality. He sang a song from 1930's at the concert which still remains close in memory. His version is worth taking another moment to enjoy but here is a Nortune version dug out of  the archives from the early 1990's hopefully capturing the laid back mood of the deep south: "Sleepy Time Down South" by Muse, Rene and Rene.