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Michael W. Herndon: Home

Cover of CD

Welcome to my site! The Spirit of the Sun is a record of exceptional taste, professionalism, and songwriting. Each song is sequenced well for a wonderful listening experience that leaves you wanting to hear the album over again!

MERLE HAGGARD sings with me on “Just Do It” and our vocals blend together surprisingly well. JOE CRAVEN adds his instrumental flair to many of the songs including an instrumental where he and I play acoustic instruments together on the song “McCanjo” which is a word I came up with for “Mike and Joe”… Hey, what else would you call an instrumental like this one!

Legendary bassist LELAND SKLAR covers the low end, and JON GILUTIN (Linda Rondstadt’s musical director) plays the piano and produced and engineered this with me. An incredibly gifted musician, Jon is. One of the worlds greatest drummers, GREGG BISSONETTE was with us for most of the sessions, and JOHN FERRARO (also a wonderfully respected drummer working with Linda Rondstadt and many others) played with us on 3 of the songs, including a hidden instrumental just before the song “Ireland” which just something that happened at the session and was not planned at all! What fun!

Jackson Browne’s guitar player with many others to his credit, MARK GOLDENBERG, plays electric guitar on many and MICHAEL THOMPSON adds his incredibly lush guitar sounds to three of the songs. James Taylor’s background singers, KATE MARKOWITZ and ARNOLD McCULLER add their magic to the tracks, selectively so each harmony is something special. GABE WITCHER blazes with his fiddle to add a distinctive sound as well.

And just so you know, I wrote the songs, did all lead vocals (With Merle Haggard on "Just Do It") and some of the background vocals, acoustic guitars, banjos, and electric guitar (on "Feed the Rose"), share engineering and producing credits with Jon Gilutin, (the master of genius he is!!). But I think I had most of the fun! Yay!!

So, listen to this music, purchase a CD and enjoy a wonderful emotional journey full of color, visual lyrics, melodies that are memorable, and each song that leaves you with the desire to hear it again.