Peter Buffett has been making records since the mid-\'80s, but it wasn\'t until he began work on his 13th album, the playfully titled Gold Star (released in 2006), that the veteran artist placed a microphone in front of him, opened his mouth and sang into it. Having devoted his entire career to creating electronic-based music for compact disc, film and theater, and writing songs for others to sing, Buffett literally had no idea what to expect from his own natural instrument, and was \"surprised and thrilled\" to discover that the vocal sounds coming out of the studio monitors bore the distinct echoes of the artists he\'d cut his teeth on, particularly Simon & Garfunkel, the Byrds and the Beatles. So he rolled with it, laying down two-part harmonies a la S&G on some tracks and doubling his vocal in the manner of John Lennon on others.