Robert Cassard

Robert Cassard is an American recording artist, singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer and musical storyteller whose creative career spans more than five decades.

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From making homemade recordings as a kid to reaching American radio audiences decades later, his musical life has been built around one enduring obsession: discovering what makes songs, performances and recordings connect.

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Cassard began writing songs and experimenting with recording at an early age. As a teenager, he was already fascinated by multitracking, vocal harmonies and the possibilities of using the recording studio itself as a creative instrument.

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At age 18, he released his first album, Over the Line (1980), a collection of acoustic singer-songwriter originals. It began a recording journey that would eventually stretch from the analog and reel-to-reel era through home studios, digital recording and the radically democratized music world of the 21st century.

 

Fifteen years later, Cassard released Get This, an eclectic album blending classic rock, acoustic music and the alternative influences of the 1990s. His subsequent work has continued to resist easy genre labels, reflecting influences ranging from classic singer-songwriters and harmony-rich pop to alternative rock, folk, country and psychedelia.

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In 2023, Cassard released the four-song Life Inside EP, exploring themes of pregnancy, birth and new life through layered guitars, vocals, and production. Acclaimed guitarist Julian Lage described the project as “beautiful…stunning…amazing,” praising its orchestration, performances and song structures.

 

Cassard's longest-running musical partnership is also a personal one. He and his wife, singer and arranger Bara Waters, spent years writing, recording and producing music together before forming Cosmic Spin, their San Francisco Bay Area alternative folk-rock duo.

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Cosmic Spin combines the intimacy of two singers and guitarists with the scale and sonic possibilities of a much larger ensemble. Cassard and Waters build their recordings around layered vocal harmonies, guitars, rhythms, loops, effects and other instrumentation, while their live performances combine vocals and guitars with original backing tracks and production elements.

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The duo's music has found audiences well beyond the Bay Area. Cosmic Spin has reached #1 on the UK iTunes Alternative Folk chart and achieved U.S. radio success on both Top 40/CHR and Hot Adult Contemporary formats. Their original song “A Break in the Clouds” spent months on American radio charts in 2025, including seven weeks in the Top 40.

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Running parallel to Cassard's life as a recording artist is another passion: sharing what he has learned.

He created Guitar & Recording Discoveries, a YouTube channel devoted to the ideas, techniques, instruments, recordings and artists that continue to fascinate him after a lifetime of making music. The channel has grown to more than 50,000 subscribers and includes hundreds of videos exploring guitar playing, singing, recording, songwriting, music history, gear and the lessons hidden inside great records and performances.

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Cassard's approach differs deliberately from conventional music instruction. He doesn't position himself as a virtuoso demonstrating what other musicians can't do. Instead, he approaches music as a lifelong practitioner who has spent decades figuring out practical ways to make it work.

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That perspective has become central to Guitar & Recording Discoveries: What took decades to learn might take someone else only a few minutes to understand if it's explained the right way.

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Cassard's professional life has also revolved around storytelling. Away from the recording studio and stage, he has built a parallel career as an award-winning communications strategist, writer, video producer, and director. That experience informs his approach to music as well: songs, recordings and videos are ultimately different ways of doing the same thing — communicating an idea or feeling to another human being.

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Across all these pursuits, a common thread runs through Cassard's work: curiosity.

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More than 50 years after making his earliest recordings, he remains fascinated by why a specific chord change can produce an emotional reaction, why every guitar sounds unique, why certain voices blend synergistically, why a recording made decades ago can still feel immediate, and why certain songs and performances weave their way into people's lives.

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For Cassard, making music has never been about reaching a point where everything has been mastered. It's about continuing to discover.