COMMUNITY NEWS
Singer Ron Kaplan’s New Book of Old Love Songs
S
inger Ron Kaplan and indie music label Kapland Records of Aptos have released their second book by Every Now and Zen Press, entitled “Song of Ron.” The 44-page book, composed of poetic lyrics from songs written and performed by Kaplan from 1976-1983, chronicles his journey of insights on love and life with his guitar as trusty companion. It can be said that all songs are love songs. That’s what Kaplan thought when listening to the radio going through a “break-up.” In those songs were tales of found love and lost love as an ever-present theme across cultures and genres. Then Kaplan turned off the radio and began to learn to play the guitar and write his own songs. As he reviewed this collection of his songs, he could see in the beginning it was about love lost, love celebrated, and love sought. As his mind expanded beyond the world of feelings he began to write on issues, and ideas, and eventually humor, with humanity at heart, in the process of being human. His life then took a different direction. He set down the guitar to focus on building a business, a family, and a life with his wife Cheri.
Kaplan returned to music to sing once again from 1994 to 2020, which he calls a saving grace. This go-around has been as a jazz singer interpreting the repertoire of the jazz standards of the Great American Songbook. “I am so glad I lived in a musical world to express myself and bask in its sea of emotions, feelings, sensations, vibrations, imagery, and co-creations,” Kaplan said. “I knew right from the start that music and I were meant to be companions, resonating together throughout time. In my mind, singers are born, and I was born to sing among other species of our world in the Animal Kingdom. It is what comes most naturally to me. There are memories and anecdotal reports of me singing at the very young age of 2 or 3. Even my name Ron is diminutive of the male given name Ronald, of Hebrew origin, meaning “Song of Joy.” So his new book, “Song of Ron,” is aptly titled, for these are the lyrics from the songs that he wrote and sang with his guitar, a valued friend and trusty companion throughout those years. n ••• The paperback is $14.99 at Bookshop Santa Cruz and Kelly’s Books in Watsonville, and $4.99 as an eBook. To learn more, visit https://store.bookbaby.com/book/Song-of-Ron
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Ron Kaplan
