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ABOUT THE ALBUM: THE SANTAIRS PRESENTS: SONGS OF RUBEN RODRIGUEZ Around 1984, I started writing my own songs. I picked up the guitar for the first time when I was 14 years old and wrote my first song a couple months later at age 15. The song was called, “I’m So Lonely”, inspired from Dorsey Burnett’s song, “Hey Little One.” By the end of 1984, I had written about 70 songs. During those times, Ruben Rodriguez, my dad's best Army buddy, steadily came over to visit and play music with my dad, and also with me when I was available. When Ruben saw that I was writing music and heard some of my songs, he was genuinely impressed. He told me he had written several songs and wondered if I wouldn’t mind listening to them and seeing if I could record them (since we had a 2 track player) and/or re-write them to fit me, or as I saw fit. Since I really didn’t have much of a musical ego (at the time), I told him I’d be glad just to play and help co-write anything if he wanted me to and record them once done. The songs he gave me were, “Token Of Love”, “On The Run”, “You Drive Me Crazy”, “Back Forever”, and “Rollin’ And Turnin’.” Four out of the five songs, I eventually recorded a professional style demo in my dad’s music studio called ‘The Cell Block Studio’, but it took until 2015 to do it. (Yes, I know, a long time to wait.) But back in the mid-80’s, we made basic demos with my dad on bass and me on guitar with us singing the lyrics. We just didn’t have drums or any real production value. I released “Token Of Love” pretty much as is in that old demo form since it was the only recording I had with me, my dad, and Ruben playing on the same song. So I kept it for those memories and didn’t want to touch it. [NOTE: The only song he gave me that I never got around to re-writing it or recording was, “Riverboat Gambler.” It was one of his favorite songs that he wrote, and I didn’t feel I should change it to fit my style.] My dad passed away in 2019. In his possession, I found a tape of recordings made by Ruben, with 11 of his original songs, two of which I already recorded, “You Drive Me Crazy” and “Rollin’ And Turnin,’” although his versions are much different than the final versions I recorded, and hardly bared much resemblance to each other. And true to Ruben’s tone-deafness (yes, he was tone deaf), all the recordings were played on an out of tune acoustic guitar with out of tune vocals to match. On most songs, you couldn’t understand half of what he was saying/singing. Even running it through an AI program, it was only able to decipher about 50% of them. Between me and AI, I was able to retrieve about 85% + of the words, and had to re-write the rest of them just to have a completed song. I remembered the days when Ruben said that if I wanted to record one of his songs, he had no problem with me re-writing it to fit my style. I took the cassette tape of his songs, cleaned it up slightly (since they were in horrible shape to begin with, just from age deterioration) and released it onto youtube just to honor Ruben. You can find it here at this url: https://youtu.be/VKEe1QLbUTQ?si=UcyBq... . Shortly before my dad’s passing, he told me he believed Ruben had passed away just a few months prior. Ruben was supposed to be going in for a “risky” surgery and would call my dad if all went well. Unfortunately, my dad never got that call. (Ruben was in a different state at the time.)While I was recouping from knee surgery and having become partially disabled over the years due to a major car wreck I was involved in back in 2014, I decided to go through those 11 songs by Ruben and see if I could run it through AI and create or recreate what he was trying to do in a more professional manner. And this is how this album came to be. My favorite song on here is called, “Lost.” One day, I hope to record it in my home music studio when I hopefully regain some of my abilities. (I’m getting older and things don’t always heal as fast as they used to.) I know Ruben loved his song, “Riverboat Gambler” so I made sure to work on that the most, and I included his actual voice in the intro and his guitar riff at the very end of the song. It was a pleasure working on these re-imagined songs that Ruben wrote. He may have been somewhat tone-deaf, but he had a great ability to write fun music and great lyrics to go with it. I dedicate this album to my dad’s friend and mine, the late great Ruben Rodriguez. I hope this finds its audience. He very well deserves it. --Wayde K. BrownSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/5QTgx7... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H8KHYRLZ/... https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLA...