Key Of Grey

Photo courtesy of techbirmingham

June 19th, 2009 – Ernie Halter is an artist signed to the independent record label Rock Ridge Music (which is in turn distributed by Warner Music). I came across his music in a somewhat convoluted way. Back when I was researching Melissa Polinar for the interview, I stumbled across an artist she worked with, Passion (I’ll dedicate an AYMNN segment to him another time). Besides recording his own original songs, Passion, like Melissa Polinar, performs covers of other artists. He covered a version of Ernie Halter’s “Melissa” in his style which made me interested to hear the original.

When I heard Ernie, the song became even better. Here was the original artist, singing the song the way he felt when he wrote it. Ernie has a soulful voice not unlike Gavin Degraw, but with a markedly different songwriting style. I feel that Ernie’s writing style is more groove based, even though the production on Ernie’s CD somewhat masks this fact. Like most artists I am fans of, Ernie is better live than produced.

Ernie is very active in engaging his fans directly. His Youtube channel, is one of the most popular, and he performs certain songs at the requests of his viewers. He has provided video tutorials on how to play his music, and as such, has ingratiated himself with many new fans. He also is quite active on his Twitter page (linked below). Check out a video of him singing my favorite song of his “Melissa” embedded below. Seems no one on Youtube has posted a tutorial for that song, even though there are many requests, so I’ll start working on one this weekend. I have already created tabs and variations on it so the only step is to record myself, which may or not go smoothly. As well, I’ll try to get an interview with Ernie to ask him questions about his take on songwriting and the music industry in general. Stay tuned!

Ernie Halter
Ernie’s Twitter Page