Support Me In Honoring My Father Through Music

A part of me went missing when I lost my father Larry Gates to cancer in 2016. At the time, my friends were considering their post-college plans, career moves, newfound relationships, and other hopeful prospects for the future. On the other hand, I was facing existential questions that come with the realities of life and death. Every day of the next year or two became about surviving one day into the next. Life with my dad in it was fun and purposeful. Without him, I began to experience intense loneliness and aimlessness. I found myself asking: “what’s the point of anything when everything is so impermanent?”

In my grief journey I realized something important that my dad showed me every day of his life: that one of the best, permanent parts of existence is connecting with people through music. He always possessed the most inner-meets-literal harmony when he was making music, a feeling and skill he passed along to me. I listened to recordings he’d made and sought solace in the warm embrace of his voice as well as the celebratory and sensitive qualities of his arrangements, compositions, and productions. He had left me a legacy of himself through his music.

An award winning audio engineer, producer, and songwriter, my dad’s work spanned from iconic jingles heard nationwide — my favorite is the Clio Award winner “I don’t wanna grow up, I’m A Toys R Us kid!” — to recording with some of the most iconic artists of all time, from Carole King to Blood, Sweat & Tears, Tito Puente to Steve Martin. He raised me in and around recording studios and live events, where from a young age I sat in on sessions and was influenced by all the sounds around me.

So I started writing songs, both in an effort to leave my own legacy and to capture my yearning to cope with grief. One of the songs that came out of that process called “If You Can See Me Now” is about the uncertainties that came with losing my dad, and trying to find answers to newfound unanswerable questions. I found myself asking him in my lyrics: “Can you hear this sound? Are you proud?”

When I began to perform the song live, post-show I’d hear from audiences that they too had similar experiences with grief, and that hearing a song that confronted these harsh realities allowed them to feel less alone in their own journeys, which proved to be a more connective – and far less isolating – journey for myself too. Now in the process of producing the recorded version of the song, I’m eager to convey to listeners a reflection of an honest and vulnerable experience that I hope will resonate with those who might have their own experiences to share.

Can you help me and my creative partners give musical and visual context to grief? To help me carry on inherited wisdom from my dad as I work through my own questions of the unknown, eager to find and provide spiritual fulfillment?

The funds raised here will be put towards finishing the entire production of this song: producing, recording, mixing, mastering, and visual assets that really represent who my dad was and the impact I hope this song might have. A portion of all funds raised within and beyond the goal will be donated to the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation, the world’s leading non-profit focused on the research and treatment of the form of cancer my dad dealt with, as well as the Larry Gates Music Production Scholarship, awarded to a full-time undergraduate student who is enrolled in the sound engineering arts program at William Paterson University.