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Recording Recollections

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By PAUL CATALA pcatala@mediageneral.com

The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 27, 2009

The idea stemmed from listening to his parents talking about growing up, their meeting, getting married, moving and eventually raising a family.

And as Dominick Pages grew up, he realized he needed to permanently record their tales, so that they wouldn't be lost in the shifting sands of time.

To do that for himself and others, Pages, a Valrico producer, recording engineer and songwriter, has begun a side project to his music production and mobile recording business, Crystal Blue Productions.

Called "Auto Autobiographies," Pages' service consists of full-service audio and video recording, editing and mastering to give people of any age the chance to tell and preserve their life stories.

Pages' first clients were his parents, Dominick Sr. and Dulce, who's recording Pages uses as a demonstration video. During the 30-minute digitally recorded video, Dominick Sr. tells about moving as a boy to New York City from Ybor City in Tampa and meeting his future wife outside their Bronx apartment at 18, much to a 13-year-old Dulce's mother's disdain.

"I wanted to do something to preserve these conversations. I thought my parents aren't getting any younger and I wanted something my parents and I could have forever about their pasts," said Pages, 50.

An accomplished musician, Pages band, "Crystal Blue," has performed in FishHawk Ranch's Park Square and one of his recording assistants lives in FishHawk. With his studio only six miles from FishHawk Ranch, he said he would like to get as many recorded autobiographies from there and the surrounding communities - such as Lithia, Valrico, Brandon - to record histories from older and newer neighborhoods.

A Bronx, N.Y., native who moved with his family to Florida in 1969, graduated King High School in 1976, Pages records from his home studio on the second floor of his Bloomingdale home. The rooms have been converted into various recording and editing avenues for Crystal Blue Sound Studios. He said clients can go there to record, or he can bring his mobile equipment out to a home to record at an additional cost.

To immortalize the audio-visual components of a life, Pages employs Leah Clark, a Temple Terrace singer-songwriter, to conduct interviews, and for an extra fee, write and record custom music to go along with the videos.

Depending on the length, visual effects and music, Pages will charge from $75 for a half-hour recording, up to $400 for an hour. The initial consultation is free.

Although Pages is just beginning his audio-visual recording endeavor, he already has his first potential customer. Kim Franca has been using Crystal Blue to record demo CDs of her original compositions and she said she would like to have Pages record her mother, Nancy Jewett, 73, who lives in Detroit.

"She's getting older and she wants to her grandchildren to know what she did. I think we're honoring our parents by letting them tell their stories to listeners," she said.

Since moving to Valrico in 2006, Pages has produced two CDs for St. Stephen Catholic Church, providing sound for the annual Spring Jubilee. He said he wants to stay involved with the community through recording and preserving some of the past through Auto Autobiographies.

"I'm trying to offer a new service that will be a benefit to the community and augment my business, as well," he said. "I feel confident that this is a service that people need. We want to make it affordable and available to everyone."

For information, see www.cbpro.com or call (813) 928-4052.

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