LARRY SEYER: ONCE MORE WITH FEELING

Oran native Larry Seyer has released a CD title "Elixers for the Human Heart."

AUSTIN, Texas -- Oran native Larry Seyer is best-known in the music business for his work with the hard-driving country swing band Asleep at the Wheel, an association which has brought him six Grammy Awards as a recording and remix engineer and one as a musician. But with his new CD "Elixirs for the Human Heart," Seyer has made an album of meditative music that would be found in the New Age section at a record store.

That leap between genres was not difficult for Seyer.

"Any great music comes from the heart, comes from feelings," he says. "It's only afterwards that categories are placed on it."

"Elixirs for the Human Heart" began taking form over a year ago. "I was playing some chords with nice, ethereal-type sounds and I continued along the thought process to where it actually made me cry while I was playing it." Seyer recalls. In a matter of weeks he had completed writing the music, which includes songs with titles like "Dreams in Space," "Orion's Waterfall" and "Chalice of Hope." The music is performed on many of the more than 30 synthesizers in Seyer's Austin studio.

His company Spacemusic markets the CD. It can be ordered at the website www.spacemusic.com or by phoning (800) 772-2368.

Seyer has worked with a glittering list of musicians, from Chet Atkins to Garth Brooks to the Dixie Chicks to Lyle Lovett, Merle Haggard, Reba McEntire and Huey Lewis. The highlight of his career so far was being in the studio with Beatles producer George Martin on the Goldie Hawn track of a Beatles tribute album. She sang "Hard Day's Night."

He also has a platinum record for his work with George Strait. He has worked on eight motion pictures, including "Dazed and Confused" and "Texas Chainsaw Massacre."

Seyer is the son of Ida Mae and "Lefty" Seyer of Oran. His father is guitarist, and his mother played the piano for her church much of her adult life. He recounts growing up in a household of eight children in which anyone who wanted to practice the piano or the guitar had the power to make the other kids turn off the TV or the radio.

Seyer is married to Karla Curtis Daugherty, formerly of Chaffee. Between them, they have three children: Adam, Mack and Ashlei.

He attended Southeast, played saxophone in the Golden Eagles for a year, and performed in local rock bands, most notably Mike Smith and the Runaways. He was associated with a U.S. Army Band from 1972 to 1975, playing saxophone, guitar and running the band's recording studios.

In 1978, he was summoned to Austin to play in a band called Cooter Brown, which at the time was opening for Willie Nelson. When Cooter Brown disbanded he played with a country musician named Jess DeMaine for a number of years before settling down in his own recording studio and beginning his association with Asleep at the Wheel.

That connection goes back to his days with the Army in Stuttgart, Germany, where he became friends with a state champion fiddler who eventually became Asleep at the Wheel's fiddle player.

A technological revolution has occurred in the business of recording music since Seyer began engineering in 1971. He loves the change from analogue to digital. "It sounds better, you have more control, the end product is better and it's easier to work with," he says.

Visitors to another of his websites, www.larryseyer.com, can watch him and the musicians at work in his recording studio via a web cam.

"Elixirs for the Human Heart" was released only in October and Seyer already is at work on the follow-up to be titled "Angels Guide Us."

Eventually Seyer intends to perform his space music live.

"Asleep at the Wheel is what I do as a living," he said. "... But my heart is really in the music that you hear on 'Elixirs for the Human Heart.'"