When I was 17, my dad took me to J.C. Penney’s in Sacramento to buy a Penncrest reel-to-reel tape recorder. It opened my world!

I quickly became bored just recording a 2-track stereo song and learned to record sound-on-sound by running the external speaker jack into a Y-cable and simultaneously recording another part. Then, I would have a mono recording with 2 parts. Then, if I did this again, called “bouncing a track,” I could add a third part to the recording. So, on one channel I had a three-part recording and on the other track I could do my final vocal. So, out of one speaker came a three-part backing track and out of the other speaker came the vocal track.

Here’s a diagram:

1st pass: Channel A – Record the rhythm guitar part.

2nd pass: Channel B – Rhythm guitar + new lead guitar part.

3rd pass: Channel A – Rhythm guitar, lead guitar + Harmony vocal and bass guitar

4th pass: Channel B – Lead vocal

The tape hiss was atrocious – sort of like five people standing in front of you and making the “S” sound through their teeth. This was way before Dolby sound reduction was invented. But, at least, I got my song ideas on tape.

Years later, I dropped these recordings onto a cassette tape, and years after that when I had a Fostex 8 track recorder, I re-recorded the best of these songs.

Today, you can find some of the songs I wrote when I was 17, 18, and 19 on iTunes, Apple Music, Spotify, etc. “Trusting,” “Fall Away,” “You Never Said ‘I Love You,'”and “Guitars and Tiger Barbs” were all written between 1971 and 1973 on the Penncrest machine.

Through my life I continued to educate myself about recording and upgrade my equipment. After my Nashville vinyl LP, I released a number of cassette projects. I made annual CDs for my friends and relatives. Eventually, I made the jump from analogue tape to digital formats. When the recording industry went through a major upheaval in the 21st century, I began putting my bedroom recordings on streaming services. They are available today… as far as I know. So, a kid who started with a cheap tape recorder when he was 17 now has releases that can be accessed from almost anywhere in the world. That’s how much the recording industry has changed in 50 years.

(Pictured: Penny’s Penncrest 2-track reel-to-reel tape recorder.)