- I guess our touring cycle
went from just a few countries to all the countries.
And I don't know why that is,
but something about that song just resonated
with all walks of life.
By the time I was 18, only a few months into playing,
it was all I wanted to do.
It was distracting me from my college work and from my jobs.
And so I had to become a musician
because I was so interested
in this magical thing called music.
I started to learn to play guitar
when I was 17 years young.
I was a senior in high school.
A friend of mine played guitar.
And once he showed me my first chord shape,
which I think was an E minor,
E minor and A minor, back-to-back,
I just, I couldn't stop.
I wanted to make up songs.
I wanted to learn more chords.
I wanted to find favorite songs and learn those.
If there are parts of a song that I found were challenging,
whether it's the melody
or trying to reach a certain chord,
or it's existing in a bar chord that I hadn't learned yet,
I just decided that I would make the song my own.
It's like, yes, I'm covering the song
and I wanna tribute it the best I can,
but I can't copy it.
That's just not who I am as a musician yet.
I can't make it sound exactly like the original.
So what I'm gonna do is try
to connect with it emotionally
and find my own work around, find my own cheat,
find my own key, perhaps, find my own position,
to simplify the song so that I can spend more time
connecting with my audience,
or connecting with the lyric of the song.
That was always more important to me.
I think if you really love a song,
you owe it to the song and to yourself, to stick with it.
To learn it and be familiar with it enough
that you can put the chart away and you can perform it,
not just for your friends and family, but for yourself,
for the joy of bringing this song to life
out of your voice and out of your instrument.
You know, I got a lot of my technique from watching others.
And when I was learning to play guitar,
I was way into Dave Matthews, way into Ani DiFranco.
Both of those players, very, very percussive,
slapping, pulling at the strings.
And it basically gave me permission
to lay into the instrument.
And prior to that, I looked at the guitar
as this fragile piece of gear.
I didn't know how to touch it or how to hold it.
Watching other players dig in
really showed me that I could, I could too.
The first song I learned on the guitar
was "Typical Situation" by Dave Matthews Band.
And it really only required
maybe pressing down on two strings.
And the rest was, was a picking pattern. Quite easily,
like, almost instantly I could sing the song.
I could perform the song.
And that was such a cool feeling.
It was almost like I got to know
the magician's secret on how he does the trick.
And I've opened for Dave Matthews a bunch.
I don't think I ever told him that "Typical Situation"
was the first song I ever learned, but.
♪ Well, you done done me in ♪
♪ You bet I felt it ♪
♪ Tried to be chill ♪
♪ But you're so hot that I melted ♪
♪ I fell right through the cracks ♪
♪ And now I'm trying to get back ♪
I had been performing for quite a few years,
touring nationally.
Even touring parts of Europe and Asia and Australia
with my first and my second album.
And it was during my second album tour
that "I'm Yours" started to pick up some popularity.
And it was after that tour that I'd go into the studio
and record it.
So I knew that audiences were hungry for it.
And when we recorded it and it came out,
I guess our touring cycle went from just a few countries
to all the countries.
And I don't know why that is,
but something about that song just resonated
with all walks of life.
Very exciting time,
because we had been putting in the work.
We knew how to live life on the road,
but now the venues were getting bigger.
There was a lot more excitement around our show
and specifically around the song "I'm Yours."
Other artists started knocking on my door
and asking me if I'd come and write with them
or would I lend my voice to their tune.
People wanted to come here to the studio
to find out if we had any magic or secret formula
that could help them out.
I remember shortly after "I'm Yours" came out,
Jimmy Cliff called and wanted to come over.
So we had Jimmy Cliff here for a day.
I mean, that's huge.
He's a reggae icon, or just songwriting icon in general.
So we had a lot of cool surprises.
And it really hasn't stopped.
The success of "I'm Yours" continues
to create invitations for collaboration
and invitations for world travel.
It was very, very exciting.
♪ It cannot wait ♪
♪ I'm yours ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
If more people played instruments,
there would be musical train rides, musical subway cars,
musical flights.
Can you imagine, like, a cross-continental flight?
And, you know, 80% of the plane has an instrument on them.
Ukulele, violin, somebody's got a bass.
It would, there would just be more song
and maybe even more musical conversations,
like basic ordering of a latte, you know?
And that'd be amazing.
When you play music,
it's a bit of, like, a magic trick,
where you, you shift from just speaking to soaring,
to singing, to dancing above the sort of the energy
of conversation.
You're somewhere else.
It makes you feel special.
Makes you feel like you've tapped into something.
Like there's always music playing,
we just need the instrument to sort of reveal it.
And when we're let in on that secret
or we're let in on that magic trick,
I think it, it invites in you,
some compassion or some understanding
that the world is more magical than it may appear.
♪ Well, you done done me in; you bet I felt it ♪