Tom Faulkner, a New Orleans-born singer/songwriter/producer knew by age 5 that music would be the fascination of his life when his mother took him to see “Lawrence of Arabia” and he begged her to buy him the music score. He graduated from Dallas' Highland Park High School where he played in The Oracle, a popular Dallas band. After earning a degree in philosophy from Washington & Lee University in Virginia and playing for three years throughout the east coast in Daddy Rabbit, Faulkner returned to Dallas and put together The Coconuts, a band that achieved rapid and prolonged regional success. Signing with United Artists Publishing and a subsequent move to Los Angeles proved to everyone involved that record company promises can be as ethereal as vapor. After a multitude of unfulfilled promises, Faulkner came home, disillusioned, and the band broke up shortly thereafter. He immediately landed a job in a small recording studio with the intention of producing other bands and artists. While Faulkner was gaining production knowledge working in the studio, his boss, Stephen Arnold, asked him if he could write a jingle for a client, and then another… and another. Within a year Faulkner started his own production company. His reputation as an accomplished singer/songwriter turned commercial music composer quickly caught the attention of advertising executives coast-to-coast. Since then Faulkner, a multi-CLIO winner, has created hundreds of national jingles and scores, including some of the most memorable commercial music on television and radio. Most notably, he composed and sang the wildly popular “I Want My Baby Back” for Chili’s, a jingle that has since found its way into motion pictures (Austin Powers) and over a dozen major network TV shows. He also created the multi-award winning music theme for Motel 6 and Tom Bodett, the longest running commercial campaign in the history of advertising (23 years, 5 CLIOs, and counting). Yet Faulkner never abandoned his dream of one day producing his own music, so in 1990 he assembled one of the finest state-of-the-art recording facilities in Texas. His intention: to create his album. Based on his previous experience with the recording industry, it should come as no surprise that in his endeavor to develop his own unique sound, Faulkner relied not on a record company to create his first CD (1998), but on his own expertise, talent and vision to create Lost in the Land of Texico. Every song on the CD has now received national and international airplay. In 2001, Windswept Publishing caught one of Faulkner’s performances in Nashville and signed him to his second publishing contract. During that time-period he created his second CD (2002), Raise The Roof. Faulkner enlisted the help of legendary New Orleans icon, Dr John, to assist on vocals in his earthy tribute to the blues, “Blues Across America”. In October 2008, The Welcome Home Project heard one of Faulkner’s latest recordings entitled, “Ten Thousand Miles Away”, and licensed it for their “Voices Of A Grateful Nation” CD set, a compilation of artists paying tribute to the brave men and women who fight for our freedom every day so far away. Today Faulkner is working on his third CD, as well as submitting songs to other national recording artists for consideration.
