Could Wayne Glaser Be the Next Great Songwriter to be Discovered?

Webster musician counts on AI to record songs

By John Addyman

 

Wayne Glaser knows he’s right.

He just doesn’t have any proof.

A lifelong musician who has written over 300 songs, he has accomplished much. But what hasn’t happened, and what would fulfill a dream, is that one of his songs is grabbed by a major artist, recorded, and put in national play.

He isn’t looking for fame. He’s looking for affirmation that what has come out of his soul is respected and loved by someone who can share it with so many others.

“I’ve already determined that five years after I die, somebody will pick up one of my songs,” he said. “I could be wrong…but probably not.”

The 74-year-old Webster resident has been part of the local Rochester music scene since his teen years, playing bass guitar with a number of bands.

If you’ve been entertained by a small group in an American Legion, country club, wedding reception, Elks Club, friendly neighborhood bar or private party, you might well have heard him. The bands he’s been part of played rock ‘n roll, folk-rock, modern country and soft rock.

His music is available on Spotify, Pandora, Apple Tunes and YouTube www.youtube.com/channel/UC8G-74B-vepUqfhxXOf_VYg, but not on a record label.

Glaser says his best work is his most recent.

“For the last 20 years it’s been a steady time of writing, recording, mastering and releasing my music.”

He has a technical background and that lent him the expertise to set up his own recording system in his basement where he can go to make the magic and produce a listener-ready version.

If life was entirely fair, some wonderful artist would hear his music and record it and Glaser’s music would have a life of its own.

Not yet, though.

His musical career has wound entirely through the Rochester area.

Think about it: Have you danced to or sang along with The Illusions? The Shag? Acton Station? Shakey Jake? High Plains? Sexton and Glaser? Then Wayne Glaser was playing in front of you.

He recently released his 10th album, “It’s Just Something That I Do.” You can find it on YouTube.

But it won’t be in stores.

For most of the corporate music landscape, he’s invisible.

Not that he isn’t trying.

His dream to be discovered hasn’t changed in 20 years, but the landscape has.

“Today, the writing pool is even more difficult to break into. What’s happened over the years is that a lot of big companies deal directly with outfits that have eight-10 different songwriters who put together songs and have a direct pipeline back to the record companies. A lot of the smaller record companies have been bought up and are now just a part of the big conglomerates; there’s not a lot of avenues to get in,” he said.

On his part, trying to break down the wall of acceptance, the process starts after he finishes the song he’s written in his studio. He then produces a high-quality recording and couples that with specially formatted lyric sheets, then uploads everything to a distribution company, DistroKid or LANDR, where his recordings are accepted and processed and then sent on to Spotify and 25-30 other sites, like YouTube.

Online, some of his songs have been played more than a thousand times; his tunes have been listened to in 76 countries.

“You get an ID code from DistroKid, so then I feel that my song is protected,” Glaser said. “I want the feeling that it’s safe so that I don’t lose my song.”

Right now, he feels that his time is near, that he’s on the cusp of breaking through: if one song gets chosen, others will be scooped up. He’ll be discovered.

His tunes are pleasant and the lyrics thoughtful.

As you listen to what he has available on YouTube and Spotify, you hear male and female voices.

Hmmm…

“My voice isn’t what it used to be,” Glaser admits. “I can’t do the things I want to with my voice anymore.”

His more recent tunes employ the services of Alan Icosta and Alexa Invesca, who are credited on the recordings.

Both of whom are artificial intelligence-produced.

AI.

The sound is real; the people are not.

Can you tell when you listen?

No.

“I created AI vocalists,” he said. “Not all of it is AI. I’m still playing all the parts and doing backups. But I found that an AI vocalist can sing what I want to hear. I still have to write the material and make it work so the AI voice can sing it properly.”

One song from his ninth album, “If Only These Walls Could Talk” (on that YouTube site), is an example of what he believes is now in his groove. “It’s a modern western kind of song that tells a great story,” Glaser said.

“I believe a good percentage of the songs I’ve put out are quality songs. I’m really happy with what I’ve been doing the last couple of years. I think I’ve found the vein where my music really works, more on the country side. I feel my writing style fits that really well, there’s a lot of storytelling going on in modern country,” he said.

His engineering expertise has provided the most recent albums with more layering, more feeling. That effect takes hours of development, and his first critic is wife, Lois.

“Sometimes I’ll run things by her and if she says, ‘I don’t think that works,’ I go back to the drawing board,” he said. Other times, “I try different backup parts and my wife will hear it off in the distance in the house and groan, “Oh, my God!”

“I’m still writing new tracks,” Glaser said. “I go to the Y three times a week. I ride eight miles on the bike. A lot of the time I’m bored, but a lot of times I’ll come up with a concept for a song. Nine times out of 10 I’ll write a bunch of lyrics that I’ll go home and work with.”

He said that you can write a lot of songs about just what you see at the gym. Modern country is about everyday stuff. And he’s an everyday thoughtful kind of guy.

In his latest album of 12 songs, “It’s Just Something That I Do,” he got an immediate reaction when he played the last song, “Someday I Will Be,” for Lois.

She cried.

Here’s a part of the lyric: “Someday I will be just a memory. That is just the way it will be, a collection of thoughts of those days of the past, that is the way that you will make them all last, dusty old albums of those memories…through the years I will always remain, somewhere out there, for as long as can be.”

That’s Wayne Glaser’s dream — not to be rich and famous, but to have his music valued, and live on after him.