Ballads were Dean’s specialty. Not just playing and singing, but writing them, summoning up the emerging poet inside. During an especially painful period in his young life, Dean turned to the guitar for solace. He practiced technique obsessively. After a couple of years, he and Kevin were performing wonderful duets at bars and coffee houses in Colorado and elsewhere. Dean wrote and sang lead; Kev contributed harmony and sublime solos.
But Dean recorded (on home equipment) some pieces on his own, pieces that showed strong promise of a career as a singer-songwriter. After Kevin’s death in 2005, Dean put his guitar away and has not played it seriously since. But these three tunes offer a radiant glimpse into what might have been.