Derek is featured in Lafayette, La.'s The Acadian on June 14, 2010.
Louisiana native launches debut album with help from Jo-El Sonnier
Louisiana native Derek Toomey wasn’t born into a musical family, but that didn’t stop music from being in his blood. Although no one in his family sang or played a musical instrument, Derek says “It was just something that was always inside me. I connected with music on the radio from a very early age and always loved expressing myself through songs.“ While song writing is his first love, Derek has recently released his first CD with some help from Cajun French Music Association Hall of Famer and Rayne native Jo-El Sonnier. To Toomey’s surprise, Jo-El agreed to assist by playing accordion on the Evangeline Parish Courir de Mardi Gras based cut titled “Evangeline.”
“I had pitched my song “Evangeline” to Jo-El a couple of years ago, but it wasn’t a right fit for the project he was working on at the time,” Toomey says. “When I decided to put the song on my own album, I emailed Jo-El’s wife, Bobbye, and she said Jo-El would be happy to fit my project into his busy schedule. I was elated because Jo-El is an icon in the music industry.”
Although Derek was born and raised in Alexandria, Louisiana, he spent a great deal of time with his grandparents in Bunkie before moving to Lafayette where he was a reporter and news anchor at KLFY-TV in the 90s. Derek left Louisiana to further his career in broadcast journalism, which ultimately landed him in Atlanta, Georgia.
Of Cajun and Irish ancestry, Toomey still has roots in Louisiana. His father Frank Toomey still lives in Alexandria. His sister Terri Richard lives in Sulphur and his brother Skipper Toomey lives in Baton Rouge.
Derek expresses fond memories of singing along to the Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, and Beatles records at his grandparents’ Avoyelles Parish farmhouse---when he wasn’t catching crawfish or wandering through the sugarcane fields. He refers to his music as “a gumbo blend of those iconic styles---with a pinch of pop, folk rock, and swamp thrown in.” While he writes songs in all kinds of genres – country, pop, Christian – he describes the songs on his CD as “Americana, which is a blend of all of the above with a pinch of swamp!” He describes his sound jokingly by saying, “If Brad Paisley and Willie Nelson had a baby together, it might sound like me.”
Derek wrote all 11 songs on his debut album, which was produced by David Leonard, whose credits include engineering the track "Interested" on India Arie’s grammy-winning album “Journey to India.” Derek’s CD is available online at www.derektoomey.com, CD Baby, iTunes and other popular e-tailers.
Toomey’s song writing also seems to be taking off. He proudly proclaims, “This year, a song I co-wrote with my friend Cindi Hall was a top 10 finalist (out of over 2,000 entries) in the Country Music Television Listener’s Choice Award songwriting competition. I also wrote eight songs on Cindi’s debut pop/acoustic CD and recently began a relationship with Nashville Publishing Company Banner Music, which is currently pitching numerous songs from my catalog.”
And, like any “good Southern boy,” Derek salutes his mother, who passed away in 2003, with “Happy Cry,” the last cut on his CD, which particularly touches the heart of all of us who have lost our mothers.
This may be the first you’ve heard of Derek Toomey, but I’m sure it won’t be the last!
Derek Toomey: News / Reviews
Derek is featured on Red River Radio, which has the largest public radio station coverage in Louisiana, extending into Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi and Oklahoma. Click on the graphic to hear the story.
Derek is featured in The Lake Charles American Press on February 12, 2010.
Derek's CD "Kiss on the Wind" is reviewed in The Advertiser and Times of Acadiana on February 11, 2010.
Songs that Shine and Uplift
By Cody Daigle, cdaigle@theadvertiser.com
There’s no denying that Derek Toomey has Louisiana in his bones.
On his debut album, Kiss on the Wind, Toomey delivers an 11-song set that cuts a wide swath across life in southern Louisiana: love of family, a deep and abiding faith, a sprinkling of joie de vivre and a taste for a party now and then.
It’s all on display in Toomey’s songs, and you can tell it comes straight from the heart.
The album kicks off with a bouncy up-tempo tune called Oh Yea! (Beautiful Day), which sets a confident pace for the rest of the album. It’s one of the more ebullient tracks on the album, which mostly rides along on ballads and mid-tempo tracks. But the opening tune’s sentiment — of gratitude and wonder at a shot at brand new day — comes up again and again in the tunes, making Kiss on the Wind nothing if not uplifting.
Toomey’s songs sit in the space between country, pop and old-style Americana, and they even take on shades of contemporary Christian rock in places. It puts one in the mind of country music circa the early 1980s, when country first started to meld with pop sensibilities. Think vintage Kenny Rogers or early Randy Travis, and you’ll get a feel for Toomey’s sound.
Among the album’s highlights is On and On and On, a duet with occasional co-writer and singer Cindi Hall. The song, in the tradition of great country duets, is a love song, and its a smartly constructed and lyrically sound enterprise. Toomey and Hall both sound great on this track, not pushing the big emotions too far, giving just enough to make it one of the album’s most affecting tracks.
Toomey also scores on Stuff, a gentle affirmation of standing by the one you love. This song pushes Toomey’s sound past country and into the realm of adult contemporary. One could easily see this track landing in radio play.
The album’s most interesting track is Alice Jane, a grinding Americana tune that puts one in the mind of a swampland honky tonk in the middle of the night. it’s a dark story-song about a woman’s revenge on a dirty cop, and the song sticks with you. As a piece of southern Gothic songwriting, it’s a classic.
And it’s a song like Alice Jane that makes the album a bit of a mixed bag. Toomey’s tunes are always first rate (the guy’s got a gift for melody), but the songs don’t always lyrically soar. Sometimes, the lyrics feel too generic, making some songs easy to forget.
Toomey’s album is best when it’s personal, as in his ode to the courir de Mardi Gras, Evangeline, and a song in honor of his mother, Happy Cry. In these tunes, Toomey is writing from a very specific place inside himself, a place where faith, home and family define who you are.
It’s in these songs that Kiss on the Wind takes flight.
Derek is featured in his hometown paper, The Town Talk, on February 7, 2010.
Former Alexandria Resident Making Splash with Songwriting Talents
By David Dinsmore
Derek Toomey hears songs all around him.
Whether it's in a conversation he's had with a friend or in the words on a road sign, he has found inspiration in a variety of likely and unlikely places.
"A songwriter is always looking for the next hook," the Atlanta resident said. "My mind is always thinking about songwriting."
Toomey began writing songs about 25 years ago by playing around on his guitar, he said.
He had a knack for writing, which has led to a career as a former television reporter -- including a stint at KALB-TV in Alexandria -- and now in the public relations department of a hospital in Atlanta.
Yet despite what he does for a paycheck, he's a songwriter at heart, Toomey said, and recently this passion has caught some attention and helped him gain some momentum toward his dream of having a full-time songwriting career.
He collaborated with songwriter Cindi Hall to create "Your First," a song they submitted to the Nashville Songwriters Association International Song Contest, Toomey said.
The song is now one of the top 10 finalists in the competitions, which will be decided by listeners' votes on the Country Music Television Web site.
Listeners can log on to nsai.cmt.com to hear the finalists and cast their votes by Feb. 26.
Toomey has submitted songs to the contest along with thousands of other applicants in years past, he said, but this is the first time he has landed in the top 10.
Additionally, his songs have caught the attention of a publisher, who has picked up about seven tracks to pitch to Nashville artists, Toomey said.
There are considerations being made by the representatives of artists from the independent level all the way up to those with superstar status, though nothing has been finalized yet.
"Lately I've been getting some major momentum going," Toomey said.
Still, it's always been about the music, he said, and writing songs that have a special meaning to him.
That's one of the reasons he decided to record his first album "Kiss on the Wind," which released last month.
Toomey created the track list by taking some of the songs he has written over the years and recording them with a guitar-driven Americana sound, he said.
During the project, he contacted representatives of Nashville recording artist and Cajun French Music Association Hall of Famer Jo-El Sonnier, Toomey said.
Sonnier had considered recording Toomey's song, "Evangeline," at one point some years ago but went in another direction.
When Toomey decided to put the song on his own album, he decided to make a request for Sonnier to record an accordion track, he said. Sonnier agreed, so Toomey's producer David Leonard -- who had previously worked as an engineer with India Arie on her first album -- sent the song to Louisiana for Sonnier to add his track.
Sonnier is not the only Louisiana icon to appear on Toomey's "Kiss on the Wind."
In the song "Alice Jane," the story takes place as the title character is driving across the Atchafalaya Swamp Freeway in Iberville Parish.
Though he recorded this album, Toomey's ultimate goal is not to have singing career, he said.
He'd rather work toward a professional Nashville songwriting career, and he is heading in that direction with accomplishments like the song contest, catching a publisher's attention and recording an Americana album.
"It's one more step on the ladder to get me where I want to go," Toomey said.
Derek's CD "Kiss on the Wind" is reviewed by a U.K. music blogger who is one of five music bloggers nominated for the international 2010 Web Blog Awards called "The Bloggies." Click on the CD cover to read what Glenn Hampson has to say about Derek's debut record.
Derek is mentioned in a Covington (Georgia) News feature about his co-writer Cindi Hall and their song "Your First" in the finals for the Country Music Television Listener's Choice Award. Click on the graphic to read the article.
Derek is featured on Lafayette, Louisiana's KLFY TV 10 on January 15, 2010 in the segment "Where Are They Now?" Click on the graphic to view the story.
Derek is featured in the Rayne-Acadian Tribune on January 10, 2010. Rayne is the hometown of Jo-El Sonnier, the famous Cajun accordion player who is featured on Derek's song "Evangeline."
