Coral Creek featuring Todd Sheaffer of Railroad Earth

Coral Creek featuring Todd Sheaffer of Railroad Earth.

Todd Sheaffer, former frontman for New Jersey roots rockers From Good Homes, proved himself a full-throated tenor fit for an interesting acoustic folk solo career beginning in 2000. After From Good Homes played its farewell concert at Waterloo Village in Stanhope, NJ, in August 1999, Sheaffer embarked on a solo career. First he performed locally in New Jersey at small venues to test the waters. By November of 1999, he felt confident enough about his abilities as a performer and songwriter to perform with keyboardist John Ginty (Jewel, Lou Reed) and percussionist Ed Nowicky (From Good Homes) at Centenary College in Hackettstown. The performance, broadcast and recorded at the Whitney Chapel on November 20, 1999 as part of WNTI's concert series, featured Sheaffer's versions of From Good Homes favorites such as "Scudders Lane," "Radio On," and "Black Elk Speaks," as well as Sheaffer's own new songs such as "Where the Song Begins" and "Dream of Love." Dream of Love: Live from Whitney Chapel, Sheaffer's solo debut CD, was released on Bag O' Seed Music on May 20, 2000. MTV licensed the music for use on its show Real World. During his days with From Good Homes, Sheaffer also played solo and found it was a good way to keep in touch with the heart of his songwriting. Solo performance also afforded him the opportunity to expand his technical skills on guitar. In From Good Homes, Sheaffer sang lead vocals, wrote songs, and accompanied instrumentally in a flat-picking, rhythmic style on rhythm guitar. Solo work created another lead voice for him on guitar. Songwriting became a matter of personal growth and expression of human emotions for Sheaffer, who first started playing guitar during high school in 1977.