Mike Rimmer talked at length to legendary piano player, conductor and arranger TOM HOWARD

He does remember that he did an album with Dolly Parton! How did that happen? "Her sister, Rachael, is a friend of my wife. There came a time where I simply said to Rachael, 'I wonder if I could just slip you a CD of some of the arranging I've done,' in the hopes of her giving it to Dolly, and she graciously did that. I kind of handed it off and didn't really think much about it for a while. I was actually back up in the Twin Cities visiting my folks who were ailing at the time and have since passed. I was spending a week or two up there with them. I'm driving through a suburb and I get a telephone call and it's Rachael and she said, 'We've sat down and listened to your CD and Dolly loves what you're doing! She's gonna write you a letter.'

Apparently, this is how Dolly likes to communicate! She's just an old fashioned girl. "Yeah," says Tom, "and the only way Dolly communicates I found out quite quickly after that is by fax! So I had a faxed letter and it was very, very sweet, very complimentary, and said, 'I'd love to work with you some day.' So we started getting in touch. A few months after all that I decided to take a spiritual retreat. Sometimes I just have to get away and clear out all the cobwebs and I was sitting in this monastic setting for a weekend just completely by myself. Whilst there, the strongest voice came to me saying, 'You should contact Dolly Parton and propose to her a record proposal about her spiritual journey.'"

He continues, "So it felt like a real instructive kind of thing. I don't normally get bolts of lightning but this was very strong so as soon as I got back I called her office and said, 'Could I get a quick meeting with Dolly?' Somehow it all worked out and the next week there I am sitting in Dolly's little studio! I talked to her about this and we did a little bit of writing together. Dolly's doing 18 things at once and her record label wasn't enthused about her doing a 'spiritual record', so that kind of got put on the backburner. But the upshot of all that was getting in pretty close contact with her, talking to her about my philosophy of string writing and all that sort of thing. And when it came time for her to do a record called 'Those Were The Days', which is a collection of songs that she loved from the '60s, like "Those Were The Days", "Imagine", "If I Were a Carpenter", I came in a did the string arranging on it."

I try and get Tom to remember other artists he's worked with but he confesses he struggles to remember. He laughs, "It's kind of like, 'What's your favourite joke?' If you ask me to tell a joke I won't remember one single joke! Right now I'm not remembering anything." In the end he says, "Well name a Christian artist and I've probably worked with them. My résumé in the Christian world is long!" He laughs, "And it's very eclectic; I've worked with Lynyrd Skynyrd, I've worked with Ronan Keating and," he waves vaguely, "some country artists. There's been a lot of them and it's always a terrific experience because it varies from artist to artist. Sometimes the artist isn't even there, but that's a whole other topic!"

A lot of his work has been instrumental so does he miss doing vocal albums? "Well unfortunately I probably miss it more than any listener misses it!" he laughs. "I never considered myself a vocalist. I mean, I can carry a tune but that's not my main instrument. I actually went through a time where I'd be working with other singers and knowing in my heart: I could express this song so much better than you're doing right now because I can dig deeper. But I don't have the instrument to bring it forth! And it was frustrating in that sense but I've mellowed. It's helped me get into the mind and heart of other singers. And so now I'm a very good vocal producer. The answer is, I don't miss doing vocal things because that really was not my strength. But I had the privilege of making a couple of vocal records and I gave it my best shot. And Larry, who did my first record, was a very patient producer. This is way before auto tuning and that kind of thing so what you hear is what you got! We had fun with it though."

I always think that old musicians never die, they just hit a fadeout at some point and that because this is what flows through your blood you just have plans to keep on doing this? "Yeah I certainly do," Tom confesses. "I'm fortunate in that the type of disciplines that I'm in I can grow old in. As long as I can stand on a podium I can conduct an orchestra. I've gotten more and more opportunity to do film scoring which I love to do; I love the collaborative thing with film directors. I've always been a film buff anyway so to be able to work in that discipline has been a great thing. It's not artist-driven in that you gotta keep looking good for the kids or something but I love working with younger artists because they kind of keep me young too!"

And with that, I have to wrap up the conversation with the still youthful Tom Howard! He may be growing a little grey here and there but he has changed little from the photos on his early albums. And when a couple of nights later I get to meet some his colleagues from his Solid Rock days, it seems that his low key approach to life has left him more able to deal with some of the hurts and disappointments that have come his way. Or maybe there's something about donning a tuxedo to conduct an orchestra that instils an air of gravitas which his denim clad fellow musicians cannot maintain.