I want to begin by expressing a huge debt of gratitude to the people who believed the Dave-Michael Valentine catalog of songs was simply too precious to disappear into the black hole of nothingness.
A volunteer team has stepped forward to help clean up some of the old tracks and even reproduce selected songs to current standards.
What makes this especially exciting is that this kind of work would once have been enormously expensive. Back in the Eternalight Studio days, Norman and I did things the old-fashioned way: musicians, microphones, studio time, tape, equipment, engineering, and a whole lot of work.
Today, computers and AI-assisted production tools have changed everything. What once might have been financially impossible can now be explored again.
What does that mean for the future? I have no idea. And maybe that’s part of the fun.
How It Started
My musical journey began around 1973, playing bass and singing backup in bar bands. It was actually a pretty good gig. Drunk older ladies thought I was cute, and I needed the money to help support my family. Everybody wins.
By 1974, though, I discovered something that irritated me tremendously: licensing arrangements at venues could affect which songs bands were permitted to perform. That did not sit well with me. So I started writing my own songs.
My thinking was simple: If I wrote the song, nobody could tell me I couldn’t play it. Take that. I could perform my songs anywhere somebody was willing to let me plug in.
Then Came Norman
In 1976, I met Norman, and we hit it off immediately. Musically, we were a slightly unusual match.
My biggest challenge was trying to keep his lead guitar restrained enough to fit my songwriting style. Norman, meanwhile, couldn’t understand why I insisted on surrounding my vocals with all those harmonies. He thought I could carry the songs perfectly well without all that falderal.
We disagreed. Frequently. And somehow it worked.
When we began playing together, I was working with Teen Challenge, and Norman and I were attending Bible college together. So Christian music naturally became the foundation of much of what we were doing.
But we weren’t particularly interested in traditional Christian music. We wanted something contemporary. Something with some teeth.
I was usually the one trying to keep things melodic and controlled, while Norman was always waiting for an excuse to unplug the VOX and plug into the Marshall.
Every now and then, I wrote something aggressive enough to make him very happy.
The Songs Started Changing
Over time, my songwriting became more secular—or at least it sounded that way on the surface. The truth is, many of those songs were deliberately written without explaining the full context. If you knew the story behind them, the spiritual undercurrent was usually still there.
That became part of the fun for me. The songs could mean one thing on the surface and something deeper underneath. They were multidimensional long before I had a word for it.
The songs being revisited today represent roughly the Top 20 most commonly requested songs from those years.
Eventually, the Music Stopped
By the time the 1990s arrived, my performing career was essentially winding down.
The biggest problem was practical: it became increasingly difficult to make enough money from live performance to justify the time, travel, equipment, rehearsal, and everything else that went into it.
So, for the most part, I hung up the guitar.
And the musical soundtrack of my life became very quiet.
I Wish Norman Could See This
It breaks my heart that Norman passed away this year, just as these old songs have been given an opportunity to surface again.
He was my greatest musical supporter. Nobody believed in this catalog more than Norman did.
I wish he could have heard what is happening to some of these songs now. Especially the old ones. Because there is a story behind why that matters so much to me.
“What Is This Hippie Shit?”
Years ago, Norman was driving his van, and a bunch of us were loading up to go see an old musician friend perform. Someone brought along a CD containing some of our old recordings.
So there we were, driving down the road, laughing, singing along, remembering gigs, making fun of ourselves, and generally having a wonderful time.
Then we stopped to pick up one more friend.
He climbed into the van. One of my old songs was blasting through the speakers. He listened for approximately three seconds. Then he leaned forward, ejected the CD, and said: “What is this hippie shit?”
Then he turned on the radio.
That was pretty much the end of the Dave-Michael Valentine retrospective. For me, anyway. Norman, of course, was undeterred.
But after that, I became strangely reluctant to share my old music, even with my own kids. Part of me could still hear that guy ejecting the CD.
Maybe It’s Time
That’s one reason this new project means more to me than I expected. Some of these songs are being given a little cosmetic surgery. Not rewritten into something they never were. Not stripped of their history. Just cleaned up. Rebalanced. Sometimes reproduced.
Sometimes updated enough that I can hear the song again instead of only hearing the limitations of an old recording. And maybe now I’ll feel a little less embarrassed about sharing them.
Especially with my kids. Because a few of those songs were written about them. Those are the ones I particularly want them to hear.
So what happens next?
I don’t know. Maybe nothing. Maybe something surprising. Maybe a few old songs get another chance to breathe.
For now, this much I know: I’m finally becoming a little less embarrassed about sharing my music.
And after all these years, that feels like a pretty good place to start.