Decades in the making, this lukewarmly awaited farewell album features the melodic sensibilities of classic 60s and 70s pop/rock, as performed by singer/songwriter Nicholas Todd and a host of the best session players and singers in the business. The story began when Todd and producer-engineer-mixer-drummer Tom Weir collaborated in the mid-90s on an album of songs that Todd had written while working for NATO in Europe. Fortunately for both of them, Todd was not killed in the Balkans War and returned to his native Southern California, where, bowing to relentless pressure from the studio owner, he decided to revisit the songs so loved by his mother and the three other people who heard them, writing new parts for the old songs, re-recording some tunes he had done with a NATO colleague, and tackling a previously unrecorded song that he wrote as an ode to his years on the continent.

The result is an album of 16 songs showcasing a variety of styles and sentiments, but sharing a common subject: love (or, more correctly, the search for love; or, even more correctly, the seemingly hopeless search for love). The musicians who lent their considerable talents to the project have made indelible impressions on the landscape of popular music over more than four decades; they include Rolling Stones background singer Bernard Fowler; ex-Wings guitarist Laurence Juber; session guitarist extraordinaire Tim Pierce; trumpet player Steve Madaio (Stevie Wonder, The Rolling Stones); keyboard virtuosos Jeff Babko (Jimmy Kimmer Band) and Phil Parlapiano; bass player Lance Morrison; singer Chistine Theard; singer Randa Runico; and, of course, drummer Tom Weir. Fittingly, the album closes with a duet with Robyn Lively, a friend of Todd’s since they met during the filming of the cult-classic “Teen Witch” – featuring music by Tom and Larry Weir.

A note about the “Todd Boone” pseudonym: this was necessitated because the name “Nick Todd” was already taken by Pat Boone’s younger brother, who had a recording career in the early days of rock-n-roll. So, in the spirit of “turnabout is fair play” (and because his mother always thought his father looked like Pat Boone), Nicholas Todd became Todd Boone. Ironically, rock-n-roller Nick Todd became a social worker – the career chosen by Nicholas Todd’s father, who, incidentally, had no desire for his son to become a social worker – or a singer, for that matter. Fortunately for his father, Nicholas (Todd Boone) has successfully avoided establishing a career in either occupation.