MUSIC

A full-time musician for many years, I started playing guitar and singing in rock and folk groups as a child in Cleveland. I moved to New York City at the age of 18 and  played with a group that indirectly eventually evolved into Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band (though I left a couple of years before Bruce entered). 

I recorded and produced for Sire Records and other labels and toured with bands and as a solo artist. I had the amazing experience of playing onstage with such artists as Jimi Hendrix and others in the late '60s, and opening for such artists as Linda Ronstadt, Tim Buckley and many more.

During my music career in New York, Los Angeles and Cleveland, I have worked as a performer, songwriter, record producer, musical arranger, artist manager, and concert producer and promoter.  I've also served as a publicist for artists, record labels, radio stations and arts organizations.

As a manager, with my then-business partner Bart Friedman (a pioneer in video art), we booked magician/​comedian/​actor/​author

Ricky Jay on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson for Jay's first national TV appearance.

In recent years I've returned to performing music, part time. In 2003 I wrote an orchestral arrangement of Graham Nash's song "Teach Your Children," which Nash sang with the remarkable 100-member Contemporary Youth Orchestra in Cleveland, in a concert devoted to Nash's music. In October 2008, I co-produced and performed in a concert with Peter Yarrow (of Peter, Paul and Mary) and several other artists at the Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland.

I currently perform with a folk-pop group called Long Road (see the Long Road page), and also accompany my brother, singer-songwriter Noah Budin, with whom I  produced Noah's most recent CD, Metaphor.

I have has also worked as a comedian and as a comedy writer for stage and radio personalities.  And I present lectures and workshops on various aspects of the history of rock and folk music, and on writing.