About Billy Dog Music Publishing

By age fourteen, she had written her first song: 

"To the left of me are some mountains
To the right of me is a dell
Right in front of me is a lake
That I love so well
But behind me are some memories
When living wasn’t fun
Behind me are bygone days
When I was always on the run
Behind me is where I left you
Behind me is where you’ll stay
Cause I’m through living in the past
Now I’m living for just today"

Inspired by people, places, and events in her life, she wrote about them all. Sometimes just a poem or some lyrics, sometimes full compositions. Other times people would say, “I wish you’d write a song about...”  and before she knew it the words and music were there.  Jan once said that her best works would wake her from a dead sleep begging to be written down and giving her no peace until they were down and committed to memory.  She gives God the credit for her gospel music compositions -- always relating that He inspired them to be written and she was nothing more than the tool He used to pen them. 

As a child she grew up around musicians and was immersed in music so it was inevitable that she would become a msusician herself.  Her parents bought her her first guitar when she was twelve. After learning a handful of chords from her father, Jan taught herself how to read chord charts and learned more. During the hot summer months she would sit for hours sometimes on the family porch swing playing the guitar and learning new material.  When she was 19, she bought a banjo and taught herself to play it.  But her first love was the piano.  First during the turbulent teen years, and later during other stressful times of her life, Jan says the sheer joy of sitting down at the piano in a dark room was more comforting and healing than any medicine could ever be.  She says, “It is in those sweet dark moments when it is just you and the piano, that the music frees your mind to think rationally. If you’re sad and want to cry the piano cries with you. If you’re angry and want to scream, the piano screams with you.  If you want to feel anything at all, the music opens your heart and fills you. Sometimes if you’re really lucky, the words pour out of you and before you realize what has happened you’ve given birth to a new song. . . Suddenly you feel a whole lot better!”

Doug Mitchell is a free-lance recording engineer and producer and has worked on numerous album projects, artist demos and song demos with hundreds of artists. His specialty area is in producing vocals and artist demos.  Doug has worked with hundreds of songwriters thoughout the years and has a deep love for the craft of songwriting.  He is also a freelance technical writer and is significantly published with chapters in books and
magazine articles on the field of professional audio and recording and reviews of professional audio equipment.

Doug has also taught as a professor of recording technology at a number of institutions including Middle Tennessee State University, SAE and The Art Institute.  According to Doug, "I have a passion for teaching - I love to delve into the intricacies of the technical world of audio and recording and make the concepts come alive and easy to understand for my students."

Doug has worked in the record industry some 20 years now, beginning with his work for Milwaukee-based Narada Records where he started in album promotions and then worked in Artist and Repertoire.

In addition to recording and producing music, Doug has a particlar interest in sound for film and video.  He has experience as a sound designer, foley artist and on-location sound recordist.

Doug is a member of the Audio Engineering Society (AES) and The Producers and Engineers Wing of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS - the Grammies).