About Rusty Crutcher

Since 1987, Rusty Crutcher has composed, arranged, recorded and released eight albums on his artist-owned label, Six "Sacred Sites" releases were composed at locations recognized as sacred for thousands of years. In addition, Crutcher has two releases of smooth instrumental music, and has produced albums by other artists, all on the Emerald Green label.

BACKGROUND
Rusty Crutcher, a talented composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist, is a long-time veteran of the Los Angeles studio scene. He is best known an acutely perceptive and technically accomplished composer of music for relaxation, massage, yoga and health - music to touch and heal the body, mind and spirit. Crutcher combines these diverse talents in his internationally acclaimed Sacred Sites Series. Since 1987, Crutcher has released eight albums of his own original composition on his artist owned label Emerald Green Sound Productions, as well as works by numerous other artists.

The six releases to date in the Sacred Sites Series emerge from a union of location-specific compositions with environmental sounds recorded at places and events of exceptional spiritual energy. Sites include Glastonbury, England; Machu Picchu, Peru at the time of the Harmonic Convergence, lively animal recordings from the Amazon Basin; solstice and equinox events at Chaco Canyon, New Mexico; ocean and animal sounds during a total solar eclipse at La Paz, Baja California; and sounds from the Great Serpent Mound, a Native American site in southern Ohio.

Crutcher began his career with the study of woodwinds, composition and theory under the tutelage of charter Glenn Miller band member, Hall Tennyson. After graduating from Robert E. Lee High School in Houston, Crutcher was awarded a full music scholarship to Southern Methodist University in Dallas, where he received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.

Relocating first to New York City, he studied multiple woodwinds with famed clarinetist/saxophonist Eddie Daniels, Crutcher then continued his studies of woodwinds, composition and piano in Los Angeles with studio giants such as Buddy Collette and Bill Green, and at the famed Dick Grove School of Music.

Over ten years in Los Angeles, Crutcher played saxophone and other woodwind instruments on hundreds of film, TV, commercial and album dates. He has performed and appeared with such diverse acts as Alphonse Mouson (Weather Report), Lionel Richie and the Commodores, Booker T. and the M.G.s, Eddie Daniels, The Emotions, Ronnie Laws, Asleep at the Wheel, the Elvis Bishop Band, the Coasters, and the Drifters among others.

In the early 80's, Crutcher was one of the first to enter the revolutionary field of sound sampling technology. The purchase of a Roland MIDI synthesizer and now primitive IBM PC profoundly affected Crutcher's musical evolution, opening new vistas in composition, recording techniques and sound design.

This exciting new technology would later make possible recordings like the Sacred Sites Series, where a seamless blend of studio and field recording create a single, unified listening experience.

Years of living in the country's largest urban centers, and a desire to return to the "music of nature," drew Crutcher to the contemplative landscape near Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he was to live for the next twelve years before moving to Austin, Texas.

Establishing his independent music label Emerald Green Sound Productions, and producing the six-CD Sacred Sites series are products of this critically productive time in his professional life. Crutcher also released two CDs of smooth instrumental music, as well as work by other musicians of note.

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