Hadley has been making music for most of his life. He began writing songs at the age of 12, and by his teenage years was performing as a lead tenor with the gospel quartet The Trevadores, touring and recording an album in Nashville in 1976.
But music didn't end there.
Throughout adulthood, Hadley continued singing and performing in ensembles, vocal groups and choral settings. He also produced a Christmas album featuring traditional Christmas carols, continued writing lyrics, and never really stopped creating music—even as his professional career took him in a very different direction.
Some of that music had been waiting a long time to be heard.
Beginning in the 1970s, Hadley composed instrumental pieces at the acoustic piano. Decades later, as music technology became increasingly accessible, he returned to a number of those early compositions. Using digital keyboards, MIDI sequencing and multitrack recording, he began rebuilding and expanding music that had originally existed primarily at the piano. Individual compositions became layered instrumental productions, combining multiple sounds, instruments and arrangements in ways that simply hadn't been available when the pieces were first written.
At the same time, Hadley's professional career was increasingly centered around technology. He spent decades in software development—envisioning, designing and building database-driven applications and helping organizations turn ideas and complicated processes into working software. That career developed a familiarity with emerging technology that would eventually find its way back into his music.
Meanwhile, the words kept coming.
Hadley continued writing lyrics, song ideas and pieces of songs throughout the years. Eventually, that accumulated writing—and a lifetime of experiences to draw from—brought him more fully back to the songwriting roots he had established as a boy.
Today, Hadley lives in High Springs, Florida, with his wife, Heidi, where he continues to write music inspired by more than six decades of experiences, people, places, memories, humor, struggles and observations about the world around him. Technology has again become part of the creative process, providing an entirely new generation of tools for developing lyrics, melodies, arrangements and musical ideas into finished productions.
Trying to place Hadley Price Music into a single genre is difficult—and that's intentional. His catalog crosses country and Americana, rock and alternative rock, soul and blues, gospel and inspirational music, acoustic storytelling, comedy and satire, children's music, and songs centered around hope and sobriety.
Sometimes a song begins with a serious memory. Sometimes it starts with a person or place that deserves a story. Sometimes it's something happening in the world. And sometimes an idea is simply too unusual or funny not to turn into a song.
Storytelling is the thread running through much of the music. Some songs draw directly from Hadley's own experiences, while others come from history, conversations, characters, current events, imagination and the everyday things people tend to overlook. The style changes because the story often determines what the music needs to become.
In many ways, the connection between Hadley's music and technology has come full circle. What began with pencil, paper, a voice and an acoustic piano eventually moved through keyboards, MIDI and multitrack recording. After decades spent professionally developing software, today's music technology has opened another chapter—one that allows a lifetime of writing, musical ideas and experiences to be developed in ways that weren't possible when many of those ideas first began.
The tools have changed considerably.
The desire to write hasn't.
The result today is a catalog of more than 200 original songs, with more continuing to be written and recorded. HadleyPrice.com was created as the home for that growing body of work. Visitors can explore the music by genre and style, discover individual songs and the stories behind them, and then choose where they want to listen.
There isn't one sound here, and there isn't supposed to be.
There are simply a lot of stories left to tell.
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