Dave Terry

About Dave Terry

"How we got here"

Dave Terry is a singer/songwriter/arranger/producer born in Oakland, CA, and grew up in El Cerrito. He was raised in a very musical family and began playing guitar in 1957 at age 8. Dave formed his first band, The Satins, in 1963, which became The Nite Owls in 1965. They performed alongside the Blue Velvets, later known as the Creedence Clearwater Revival. He also played tenor sax in El Cerrito High School’s orchestra, jazz, and marching bands. While in the Navy (1967-1970), he was the battalion drum leader during marches and parades playing the marching snare drum. He moved to Sacramento after leaving the Navy and joined drummer and singer Larry Lynch in a band called Conception which they had for several years. In 1974 Dave & Larry reorganized, added a bass player and songwriter Steve Wright and formed a group called Passenger. At the end of that year, Dave took a 4-year sabbatical from performing, while Larry and Steve went on to become members of the Greg Kihn Band.

In 1978 Dave began songwriting and once again had the desire to perform. In 1982, he was interviewing with the A&R departments and music publishers at Screen Gems, Motown, RCA, A&M records, and the independent record label of HB Barnum, the legendary producer, and arranger. They encouraged him to write more songs, pursue and develop his own style/sound, which he spent years doing. In 1994, Dave recorded with and was produced by Roger Smith, who is now with the Tower of Power. In the late 1990s, he met and recorded with Mike Pinder of the Moody Blues and went to England and recorded with Tony Clarke, the producer of the Moody Blues. Upon returning, he once again reconnected with HB Barnum and moved to LA after signing a 3-album record deal with his music company. Dave became one of Mr. Barnum's assistant co-producer/keyboard sequencers and traveled with Aretha Franklin in 2002. He performed on the production track of "My Country 'Tis of Thee" for Aretha Franklin’s performance at the U.S. Open tennis tournament finals in New York in 2002. Dave performed at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood with HB’s famous Life Choir and performed guitar tracks for the TV show, Star Search. He recorded and assisted another legend, Mel Carter, on his production of The Legends of Rock & Roll that was nominated for a Grammy in 2017.

While in LA, he met Nolan Shaheed, the former music director of Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross, Marvin Gaye, Natalie Cole and others, who had his own studio in Pasadena, and Dave began recording his songs. After a few years of setbacks and the music industry collapsing during the new digital age, he decided to put the his music on hold, moved back to northern California and built his own studio where he produced an album for Philippine recording artist Gloria Papin called “Imagine this” in 2006 and also recorded in the Philippines with her sister megastar Imelda Papin.

More setbacks occurred in 2009 when his studio was burglarized and all his recording equipment, computers, back up hard drives, guitars, keyboards and recordings of the almost completed album were stolen. After years of recovery, replacing everything, re-recording everything, Dave & Nolan reconnected, collaborated with amazing musicians and produced this album appropriately called “It’s About Time,” released May 2019.