Mandy Moore Instagram – In December of 2008, deep in the snowy quiet of Medford, Massachusetts, I started a record called “Amanda Leigh” with my buddy @themikeviola (we wrote the whole thing together) at his dear friend Ducky Carlisle’s home studio. We hunkered down for most of December and the first chunk of January tracking the album. Mike and Ducky handled every instrument (Duck was a pretty monster drummer and Mike played everything else of course). We stayed in the house while we were recording, a glorified summer camp experience of sorts, scrambling down for Mike’s egg sandwiches and coffee in our pjs (and never changing out of them because we were just in the basement making music). Making that record changed me. It was already such a big step- a kind of weird musical swing for me but the process of recording it with Mike and Ducky instilled this confidence in me that I’ve somehow carried with me ever since. I look back on that time with so much fondness and affection. Ducky was really one of one. Hearing stories about his life, his deep, deep love of music and the way it was made… his insane sense of humor. Man. He was a hard one to pin down and we kept in touch over the years via email and he even came to our show in Boston last summer. It was so lovely to catch up and introduce him to Taylor and shout him out from the stage. When I found out he had passed, I found our record and listened with my headphones on and a BIG smile on my face (long story, it’s not online but you can find it on YouTube. It’s really cool- go listen!!) We will miss, Ducky. Always in our hearts. Xoxoxo