Rockaway - It's Not My Circus

This album project, titled “It’s Not My Circus”, one of the songs on this album, is a collaboration between Alasdair MacKenzie and Larry Rifkin.

Larry, as the writer of this collection, shares his vision of the work through demos he performs vocally and on keyboards at Ace Tone Studios in Bethany, Connecticut. He then entrusts the work to Alasdair MacKenzie, a multi-instrumentalist to execute through his great vocal stylings, and sound recording prowess. Larry joins in on vocals on various tunes suited for his range. Alasdair’s virtuosity brings Larry’s writing to life.

It is an interesting collaboration which began very unexpectedly in 2022. Looking to surprise Larry on a milestone birthday, his daughter, Leora, and son-in-law, Peter, wanted to find a talented musician in the Boston area to take one of dad’s demos and turn it into a professional work. Alasdair, a member of one of Boston’s premier groups, The Hush Club, came highly recommended and dad loved the work. The first song he polished up was “Sometimes Love Just Isn’t Enough”, which is part of this collection. Since that time, the duo has collaborated on a total of twenty-three songs to date.

It is a truly inter-generational project. Larry writes from the perspective of a 71 year-old man as he ponders issues of love and loss, the remarkable woman he married 46 years ago, war, politics, the birth of a granddaughter, everyday life, the inevitability of death and story songs about, for example, the unheralded editor of the journalism that brought down Richard Nixon to the early adult years of a woman tragically still missing from her Connecticut home.

Alasdair, in contrast, is in his mid-twenties and yet has the musical chops and influences, from his dad, which make this work so familiar as part of his listening experience growing up. It’s a coming together of an unexpected sort in the creation of some fresh sounds reminiscent of a soft rock era, in the 1970’s, now termed yacht rock, which is much loved, but little pursued in this moment. Yet, there are clubs emerging in urban areas dedicated to this type of music. These are songs with lyrics that demand your attention and melodies that make the experience come alive.

Eight of the songs they have worked on have made it past the filter of reviewers at taxi.com, the world’s largest independent A&R company, and are awaiting review by music publishing companies. If bought you may hear them in the background of a movie or television project. If not, they may appear as part of the next collection offered up digitally for purchase.

The name of the group, Rockaway, was inspired by Larry’s wife, Carmelita, in recognition of time he spent at a New York beach as a child visiting his grandmother’s bungalows. It’s also easy to remember and the memories are hard to forget.