Albion Man in Harmony with Musical Mission
By SCOTT AUST Telegram Staff Writer
© 2003 Columbus Telegram
ALBION - On most trips, Paul Hosford's wife does the driving. Not because he is necessarily a bad driver, but because the Albion musician is too distracted by the music he constantly composes in his head.
"I get so wrapped up in the music that I don't pay attention. I go right past where we're supposed to turn," he said.
"She's indulged me for all of these years," Hosford, 42, said of his wife Lori. "She's indulged me in this little mission. I've been very fortunate to have her in my life."
The "little mission" of Hosford's is the small recording studio started in the basement of his home in 1986 and the record company, Painted Heart Music, LLC, that he and Lori own and operate to market his music.
Painted Heart has released 10 full-length CDs and one CD single, including a release in August of "Emergence," featuring Hosford playing guitar, string bass, flute and cello on music by George Gershwin, Duke Ellington, Cole Porter, Thelonious Monk and several others.
The first release on his label, "Emergence," was chosen as one of online magazine Guitar Nine Records' undiscovered artists for February and March. The magazine also wrote a positive review of the CD.
"I became interested in doing this sort of work when I was just a child, maybe about 11," Hosford said. "I got two cassette recorders and I wrote a little song and played and recorded it. Then I played that back, got another instrument, played along with it, and used the second recorder to do that."
Hosford played piano and guitar, and had his little brother play the trumpet. If you ask him to explain how he understood the basic concept of multi-track recording, Hosford just shakes his head.
"I honestly don't know. It just seemed like a good idea at the time," he said. "Of course the sound quality was pretty bad."
As an eighth-grader, Hosford was part of a power trio: The South Fifth Street Poetry and Moral Fiber Society.
When he was 12, Hosford became enamored of a bass guitar he saw for sale at the local jewelry store. A band had traded in their instruments for engagement rings.
"I've often wondered what type of engagement rings they could get for the instruments they traded in," he said. "There was a $50 Sears and Roebuck bass guitar with a Budweiser sticker taped to it. I hounded my father for a long time, but finally he got it for me."
That Hosford has such an obvious passion for music is understandable considering his heritage. His father, Frank Hosford, was a professional jazz pianist back in the Big Band era and his grandfather was a professional musician and self-taught artist. Hosford even has his great-great-grandfather's wooden flute that dates to pre-Civil War times.
"It probably came out here in a covered wagon," he said. "It's cracked, so when I was in the fourth grade I took it to school and the teacher put tape on it. It's worked ever since. You can't play all the notes, but it's a fun instrument."
Hosford, who has composed more than 50 musical works, had actually planned on pursuing a career in engineering but ended up farming with his father until 1991 when Frank retired and his first son, William, was born.
After that, Hosford thought he would just stay home and work in the studio while taking care of William, who was soon followed by Angela, now 10, and Thomas, now 4. Lori Hosford used to work at a country school, but it closed. Now she substitutes.
"Being young and naive, I imagined I could do both. I ended up doing a lot more diaper changing and burping than I did recording for a few years," he said with a chuckle.
The recording studio started out as a hobby, one that was built, piece by piece, over several years. Advances in technology have made multi-track recording more affordable, and MIDI, which stands for musical instrument digital interface, was a huge leap forward in synthesizers that added more capabilities previously out of reach, Hosford said.
"MIDI is like an old-fashioned player piano. It records what the musician's hands do, but it doesn't record the sound the instrument produces," he said. "To the computer, they're just another data entry. It's a very flexible, convenient system."
For example, Hosford could play notes on a MIDI piano keyboard and change them digitally to sound like a saxophone.
Not only is the music produced in Hosford's studio, the CD's packaging, including the artwork, design, text - even the shrink-wrapping - are done in his basement. The finished product is then marketed over the Internet.
"Until very recently you couldn't get this quality, either graphically or musically. I've really been a beneficiary of all the technological developments that have taken place the last 20 or 30 years," he said.
After the tracks are laid down, they are mixed, sequenced and burned onto a master CD. The process can take three to six months.
It's difficult to categorize Hosford's music. It's sort of a combination of jazz, blues, folk, rock, classical - a little bit of everything. While partial to jazz, Hosford has a deep love of all musical instruments, a love he shares by demonstrating stringed instruments at various local school assemblies.
As he was growing up, Hosford avoided listening to the popular music played on the radio because he didn't like it.
"I worked hard to avoid it as much as possible. I suppose it had to do because I already had a lot of music going on in my head," he said. "It's inside of me, and I have to let it out."
Hosford's father once remarked that a musician doesn't make music because he wants to, he makes music because he has to.
Looking to the future, Hosford said he has "an absolutely full slate of recordings" to work on, so he'll continue to do that indefinitely.
"There are lot of talented people around here who, like me, chose a path other than a full time professional musician's life. I think this is a great way to connect with them," he said.
Reach Scott Aust at 563-7534 or scott.aust@lee.net.
In The News...