“Here” is here

By Dr. Carl Tyrie

Members of the popular Watauga County band Laditude have released their newest CD and it’s available locally. The name of the CD is “Here.”

Husband and wife team Ken and Amy LaDeroute have entertained area residents for several years as part of the band Laditude (formerly Cloud Nine), playing at events such as the Fur Ball. Meanwhile, Ken and Amy spent the last five years producing the ten songs on the CD. Amy is the primary vocalist. Ken wrote the songs, played most of the instruments and recorded the cuts in his studio. He describes the songs as feel-good happy tunes with an underlying central theme based on the love he has for Amy. “It’s a sentimental emotional album that came out of me,” he says. “I wanted it to be honest. I wanted it to be true to me.”

The title of the CD was taken from one of the ten cuts on the album. “We got together with some friends before the album came out,” Ken says. “We were listening to the music and just about everyone acclaimed ‘Here’ as the best song on the album—the most emotive, the most feeling, a John Lennon type song.”

One of the reasons the CD took five years to produce was Ken’s decision to do it all. “I decided I was going to purchase equipment and learn the equipment so essentially I had to learn how to become an audio engineer,” he says. “So I did everything from start to finish—the composition of the tracks, the lyrics, the orchestration, the instruments, the production, the engineering, the recording and the mixing, the processing and the mastering.”

The LaDeroutes spent time evaluating how to package the CD, hiring graphic designers who eventually came up with an eye-catching triple-foldout CD package and a disc featuring their photos along with the CD title. “We were very pleased,” Ken says. “It was just what we were looking for. It has the ‘Wow!’ factor.”

“Here” is available on-line at Laditude’s website, www.laditude. It’s also available at Amazon.com and cdstreet.com and cdbaby.com. The CD is available in Blowing Rock at Pandora’s Mail Box, Dress Barn and in Boone at TCBY, Grapevine Music, Hully Gully Music, Bare Essentials and Claison Salon.

One of Ken’s goals is to get one of the album cuts picked up and recorded by a major artist. “Several of the cuts are very accessible,” he says, “and I think they could end up on a major artist’s album.”

Amy, on the other hand, has a lower-key approach. “We’d like all our friends and relatives to buy the CD,” she says.

If thousands of copies of “Here” aren’t sold, Ken says he’ll still be satisfied.

He says he learned a lesson during the 14 years that he and Amy toured as part of a band, during which time people would ask them when they were going to “make it.” “I’d always say ‘We’ve already made it” and I still say that,” he says. “I’m doing what I love to do. I’m writing music and I’m producing music. It’s what I love to do.”