Bernie Williams

When your status as one of baseball's top players helps you land a recording contract that most full time artists would kill for, expect some critical listening. Bernie Williams, the Yankee centerfielder for the last eight years, recently released The Journey Within, his debut smooth jazz CD on GRP. Rookie jitters and inexperience are evident-Bernie never quite lets loose the way a more seasoned player would, but all in all he hangs with the All Star cast that producer Loren Harriet has surrounded him with.  

"We put Bernie in a position where he'd have to rise to the level of his teammates' talent," says Harriet-Leland Sklar, David Spinozza, Bashiri Johnson. Working out of Globe Studios in Manhattan, Harriet and a pair of engineers, Danny Bernini and Tally Sherwood recorded and mixed the entire album in four weeks.  "Bernie learned the recording and mixing processes very quickly," says Harriet. "He's the sweetest guy in the world, but he's also very intense. Once he realized how much fixing up work Pro Tools can do he wanted to edit out every noise he didn't like and move drum hits around. When we get around to doing the next album he'll be even better."

“Just Because,” a love note for his wife, is the first single off The Journey Within.

Appeared in Mix, September 200