By the early 90s I had a few songs recorded by other singers (see "Overview" section), but wasn't performing much. I was ready to start working on something completely different, so in 1994 I started learning some new songs for a project I had wanted to do for a long time, a Billie Holiday collection in the "cool jazz" mode. I had done some sessions with a guitarist by the name of
Ron Thompson, a talented multi-instrumentalist who played bass, banjo and guitar and had a wonderful Django band named Gypsalero. We had worked on some of my tunes, and in January of 1993 we got together with bassist Brent Gubbels to record a handful of demos.

Wanting to put together a fully-fledged band, I asked Ron to act as bandleader, and in no time we had a wonderful group called
Hogan Sings Holiday, with Ron and Brent, plus Miles Black on piano, drummer Craig Scott and Tom Keenlyside on saxophone.

I wanted to sound as close to Billie's early recordings as possible, and this band nailed it right on the head. With very little rehearsal time, working from Ron's excellent charts, we started gigging at a wonderful old church that had been converted into a performance space called the Glass Slipper. It was run by volunteers and had a full P.A. and a grand piano on site. It was a dream come true to get to play there, and we all got so much pleasure out of the repertoire that things just seemed to fall into place right from the very first performance.

We recorded 12 songs over two sessions in 1994 at a home studio belonging to Rick Kilburn, with Rick in the producer's chair. The sessions went incredibly smoothly, most songs being finished in one take. All I had to do was go back a week or so later and record my vocals. It was the easiest time I've ever had in the studio, and everyone had so much fun. It seems it was just meant to be.

:: click on photo to access sound clips and a review::