New Album Coming Next Week

I have been recently working on gathering and recording a collection of original old songs that I’m very proud of.

After I retired, I realized I had written BOOKS of original songs. Some of the best ones I shared with folks earlier in my life. But when I started going through the whole collection, I realized there were MANY that I just never got around to recording. Not because they were necessarily bad … but they just never “fit” my past projects (Messenger, etc).

Songwriting for me is kinda like journal keeping. I can read the words and remember exactly where I was … what I was going through at the time … who surrounded me, etc. And sometimes what I wrote had nothing to do with my life at all. I just heard a great phrase, or saw someone do something outstanding.

It’s also like cooking. You can create a hundred cakes before you end up with a true masterpiece. I laughed out loud at some of the stuff I had written. There were many wadded up pages in my trash can when I got finished. And I’m certain my face turned red with embarrassment as I read some of them. But it was enjoyable to see how many actually okay songs I wrote over the years. It’s been really fun for me to pick out some of the more stable ones to include in this project. I’ve never put another collection together that I like as much as this one!

Typically don’t like my own end-products, but this one is special to me somehow. Probably because it’s a country collection.

Look for “Calling all Crows” to be released on Spotify on February 12th. I hope folks enjoy listening as much as I enjoyed collecting and recording these!

Hey It’s Good to be back home again!

My wife and I just got back home from traveling to Canada. What an adventure it was!

As we gazed upon the snowy peaks of the Canadian Rockies, I couldn't help but think about the late, great, John Denver. Song after song came into our minds as we visited Jasper, Banff, and Calgary among others. Oh, how blessed we were!

I've always been inspired by the singer/songwriters like John Denver, Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Gordon Lightfoot, Donovan, Dolly Parton, Merle Haggard, Carol King ... the list is huge. Don't get me wrong...I enjoy a good singing voice just like most folks. But, to me, it's the folks that can pen an inspirational poem and then top it off with a creative tune that inspire me most. Even the writers whose voices aren't necessarily polished and perfect inspire me more than those folks who sing tunes that weren't penned by them. There's just something that speaks to me more when a creator presents a song inspired by something that happened in their own lives.

I consider myself a songwriter more than a singer. I'm no Kris Kristofferson, but my songs do come from my personal experiences. I absolutely love being inspired by something and then putting that inspiration into a tune. I don't write books, songs, or poems for the money. I certainly don't do it for fame. But I do enjoy sharing my creations with others.

That said, just released two new collections of songs earlier this year and published my first book, Zuvia, on Amazon as well. If just one other person hears my music or reads my book ... and from that, gets inspired to create something themselves... or hears something that perhaps helps them to cope with an addiction ... or if just one person smiles while reading or listening... THAT is what makes me fly. Just one person.

I hope you are able to hear something you like in my songs. I am told I have a wide variety of styles. If you have a chance, stop over at my website sometime (https:// rdstarmer.wixsite.com/zuvia) and check out my variety of music genres. The site also links to my book on Amazon and my artwork available on ArtPal. I hope I can make you smile or give you some inspiration.

Thanks for being a fan! Ronny Starmer

New Recordings of my old Christian Songs

In this world today, there's way too much focus on "me-ness". I've been watching the transformation over the last 50 years. It started subtly in the 60's and is now blossoming into a full-blown selfishness. Folks are being brainwashed into seeking 'their' happiness, 'their' career, loving themselves first. It's a me, me, me World. THIS is why we are suddenly seeing so many mass shootings, marriages failing, so much hatred, and so much finger pointing. Love ... the kind that puts others first ... is the ONLY answer. That true love can ONLY be found ONE place .... at the foot of Christ's cross. But mention that today, and watch the self-lover's blood begin to boil. It ain't all about you. Until you grasp that ... you'll find yourself constantly battling against yourself. You cannot save yourself.

Years ago (literally) I wrote a bunch of songs about my Christian faith. I even played in a Christian rock band for ten years. Now I ‘get’ that music is definitely not gonna save the world. Lotsa folks don’t even care for music. But for me, it’s important because it helps me to express things in a way I can’t normally do by just speaking. I think it allows me to say things I’m thinking without feeling like I’m coming across as Barney Fife.

Anyway … I recently opened up an old notebook of my original Christian songs and I began to read through the words I’d once written. Some were pretty good. Others … well … let’s just say that they were pretty awful. I started wondering why I ever even wrote some of them. But then it dawned on me that those old songs were many times written by me not necessarily as songs … but as prayers. So as I re-read the words, I started remembering times, places, and things that I once experienced. Some great. Some not so much. And I discovered that a BUNCH of ‘em were written AT me. It was almost as if ‘Someone’ was talking TO me through my own pencil.

As I worked my way through my note book …I began pulling out some of my better ones. I’m now 5 songs into my next recording and I cannot for the life of me understand why these never got recorded twenty years ago. Sure, some are ‘old style’, hard-hitting, classic rock. But the words speak .. at very least .. to me.

I hope to continue to add to this new collection as I discover other stagnant writings in my old notebook.

Hope You Enjoy these new 'old' songs!

Ronny