Hi, I'm Dave Palley.

With design and technical help from Parisa, a friend of my daughter, Lisa, I created this website to share my songwriting and music with family, friends, and whomever might take an interest.  In particular I wanted to supply the song lyrics to listeners.  Some may remember how cool it was when lyrics first began to accompany the vinyl LP’s we collected.  If you will look at the lyrics you will also find some photos and commentary, which hopefully will deepen your listening experience. 

I have loved popular and folk music since the early 1950’s, when I was but a tyke.  I know the words to a great many songs I heard on the radio before many people owned television sets.  And since my parents boycotted TV until 1980, I grew up on Elvis, Buddy Holly, the Everly Brothers, Sam Cooke, the Coasters, Ray Charles, KYA, KDIA.….and folk music.  My parents never forced music lessons.  So I started piano too late to catch up, then switched to folk guitar lessons with Barry Olivier (who went on to direct the annual Berkeley Folk Festival).  I played some rock ‘n roll too.  I heard Joan Baez around a fireplace in 1963 at a Quaker-sponsored high school civil rights conference at Asilomar.  At Berkeley High (class of 1964), I ushered Community Theater events including Reverend Gary Davis and Jimmy Reed.  I was into Bob Dylan before I heard the Beatles.

I attended but failed to drop out of the same college as Gram Parsons and Bonnie Raitt, and so, unlike them, my career in music was somewhat delayed.  But I did hear Paul Butterfield, Howling Wolf and Dave Van Ronk at Club 47.  Upon completion of college I taught elementary school for three years, enjoying music with children regularly, as I have since.  And I enjoyed music of an evening with friends.  During law school at Berkeley, I took an evening class again with Barry Olivier (with about ten participants), a highlight of which was two hours at Doc Watson’s knee.  

Songwriting is a passion I came to late.  I thought.  I felt.  I didn’t do much creative writing, but I was a lawyer and I wrote regularly and clearly.  I love the song as creative medium for communicating thoughts and feelings.  But I didn’t know until recently that I could find an original melody or write a song.  More about how I got started you will find in the commentary for the title track, “Go to Sleep Like a Daddy.”

So in retirement, in addition to “Housekeeping” and volunteering with children in the schools, I have been writing songs lately, enjoying it greatly, and improving at it as I go along.  I have taken guitar and voice lessons too, realizing how important is performance if I am to truly communicate.  Thanks to John Greene of Fifth String Music in Sacramento, my current fret-board flight instructor.

I want to thank Kelly Fleming and Tony Unger, the musicians who accompany me on this CD.  Kelly has been my teacher in Nevada City, CA for several years.  I would be thrilled if performers of talent greater than my own would care to take any of my songs to a broader audience.

Here’s a photo of me in work hat, 2015, at my foothills home.  In the background is artist, Mike Smith’s “Horse that sends dreams.”