"All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning." - Albert Camus What if you could attend your own wake and all the eulogies were songs—friends and family all singing along, clapping, thumping, plunking keys, strumming stringed things? Well, that’s the story of Dominic Moore’s latest album Amateur Sketches of Famous and Important People. In an age of disposable music and ADHD mp3s, it’s a throwback: a concept album, built around two core concepts. The first concept? Amateur Sketches tackles "important" (using the term as loosely as he does deliberately) figures. Each song is a sketch about a different person—Rush Limbaugh, Pocahontas, Paul the Apostle. “I wasn’t interested in ‘good’ or ‘bad’,” says Moore. “It’s way more interesting to me to figure out what we have in common with these characters.” The second concept? Moore recorded basic guitar-and-vocal tracks at home then set his friends loose–from NYC to Napa, 20 years’ worth of musical partners from every chapter of his music career to his current bandmates in The Lower Lights –with the simple (and purposefully vague) instructions: “give the song what it needs.” The songs came back like a loose patchwork quilt or a kid in new school clothes. Then, it was the task of co-producer Scott Wiley (Elliott Smith, Neon Trees, The Moth & The Flame) to meld them together sonically, as he mixed and mastered the songs into a cohesive whole that feels like a family, while highlighting the gifts of each musician and track. And, just to up the collaborative ante, the album art and a companion coloring book were illustrated by local artist Tom Bean, allowing the listener to “give the characters what they need.” Maybe Rush Limbaugh needs a soul patch. Maybe Robespierre could use a steel collar. The sky’s the limit. Amateur Sketches of Famous and Important People is Moore’s third solo album and 12th studio album (Abe Lincoln, Fieldbook, The Lower West, and The Lower Lights). He is a Utah songwriter who’s been everywhere but Utah for the last decade, migrating from coast to coast to become a Palliative Care Pediatrician before landing back home.