Just after I finished composing and producing music for the two Great Western Bank spots, I was contacted by my good friend Stephen Yarbrough. Stephen was the professor of theory and composition at the University of South Dakota. He had been contacted by ViaGroup, a prestigious advertising firm, who was interested in using portions of one of his pieces for a nationally-broadcast Welch’s grape juice ad.
I advised Stephen regarding how to license the music and assumed that the performers, of the existing recording, would agree to ViaGroup’s budgeted remuneration. However, the performers did not agree to ViaGroup’s offer. So Stephen asked me to produce a new recording of his piece to be used in the ad. As a result, Stephen owns a wonderful recording of his piece Angel’s Dance and Welch’s was able to utilize this piece in their grape juice campaign featuring Food Network celebrity Alton Brown.