Tom McKeown - Singer/Songwriter, Producer

Tom McKeown is one-half the songwriting team of Humphrey-McKeown. He is the multi-instrumentalist genius behind the Humphrey-McKeown sound.  In 1971 when he was just 10 years old, McKeown’s parents presented him with a guitar for Christmas.  Since that time his love for music grew as well as his resume of: touring artist, engineer/producer, session vocalist, guitarist, keyboard player, singer/songwriter, arranger and performer.  With his strong vocals rooted in his background with progressive rock and music production, he knows just how to build into a song’s hook quickly and knows the importance of giving an audience something different musically – whether it’s the unexpected chord, lyrical ideas or a different instruments, using guitar, bouzouki, mandolin, mandola, bamboo flutes, banjo, with heavy drums and bass to get a perfectly unique sound. Check out Humphrey-McKeown at www.hm-music.com

Damascus Click here to download the last two Damascus CDs
I've had many people ask me about Damascus (the prog-rock group, not the town in Syria). I was the main vocalist and primary songwriter for the band. The group consisted of myself, Dave Coy, Cliff Zweibruck and Marc Reich. Marc left the band in 1988 to pursue a job in Oregon. The three of us that were left continued on and used technology to help us sound like a much bigger band. At one point, we were up to 13 synths. It was a crazy and fun time but like everything, it came to an end. Why? After 12 years of pursuing the ellusive record deal, we figured out that being a progressive band and being Christians wasn't a mix destined for success. We had many managers and agents tell us that if we just sounded like (you fill in the name of some bland, overly sweet Christain artist) we could have great success. That wasn't who we were and we would rather stop than to be pressured into a style that felt like a huge compromise of integrity. Dave was the first to express his needing to "give up". Cliff and I in turn realized this was the end of Damascus. We all had young families and didn't want to travel as much anymore so ending it was the right thing to do.

Over the years, I've thought about releasing was was to be our fifth album but never really had the time. I worked as a producer with other artist and released a few CDs for other people. In 2006 I started working with Heather in Humphrey-McKeown and that cut down on the possibilities of another Damascus CD. We had some great songs written for number five, but alas, time prevents the realization of it. I'm thankful to Cliff and Dave for coming out a couple years ago and playing a handful of Damascus songs for a few hundred people for my birthday. That was fun.

Who knows? If there is enough interest, I may go back and finish what we began in 1991. In the meantime, I am offering the last two Damascus albums here for free. The recordings are only fair by todays standards but was what we could afford to do back then. Have a listen and enjoy. Oh, I've included a rough demo of one song that was going on the next CD. Feel free to share the link to the free download.