SunTurtle Studios, Art and Music by Tim Cooney

SunTurtle Studios, Art and Music by Tim Cooney SunTurtle Studios® — the creative home of Tim Cooney: writer, singer-songwriter, painter & photographer. One archive, one hundred years.

Home of the forthcoming memoir Taking the Helm and its three-volume soundtrack. Welcome aboard 🌙 sunturtlestudio.com

09/20/2026

We were passing through on our way to Las Vegas when I saw this poster hanging in a Marie Callender restaurant. True legends all. Can’t wait to play them all the way there.

09/18/2026

Five years ago today I drew a sun and a turtle on a napkin. It was my sixtieth birthday.

The trademark certificate says it plainly: first use, September 22, 2021. Today SunTurtle Studios turns five, and I turn sixty-five.

In between came five volumes of songs, a wall of paintings, nights at HopMonk with the band, a hundred-year family archive, and a memoir on its way.

Here's what's next. On October 1 the new SunTurtle Studios website goes live — the songs, the paintings, the photographs and film, the archive, and the book, all in one place for the first time. If you're not following this page yet, hit Follow. That's where you'll hear about it first.

I'm writing this from the road — Cindy and I are in Utah this week. But I didn't want the day to pass without saying the simple thing: thank you. For watching, for listening, for reading, for showing up. That's what kept me going.

☀️🐢 SunTurtle Studios® · Valley of the Moon 🌙 · 1 Archive – 100 Years

09/12/2026

Twenty-five years ago this morning.

I photographed the World Trade Center site over several years from a window above it, while it was being rebuilt — the steel, the cranes, the first pool running, and finally the tower with the spire on it.

We lived in Sandwich then. My son's best friend's father was one of the two fighter pilots on alert at Otis that morning. Our town lost Captain Gerald DeConto at the Pentagon, and there's a field at the high school now that carries his name. Two hundred and six people from Massachusetts died that day, and both planes had left from Logan.

My daughter Grace lives near Ground Zero now. She's twenty-three. She knows what happened there and has no memory of it, and I've come to think that's the whole point of rebuilding it.

The full newsletter is here: read.sunturtlestudio.com

☀️🐢 SunTurtle Studios® · Valley of the Moon 🌙 · 1 Archive – 100 Years

09/08/2026

"Sweet Lucinda," live at The Lost Church in Santa Rosa on Sunday afternoon.

The Allman Brothers wrote it as "Melissa" in 1972. Lucinda is Cindy's real name, and I have sung it her way since I got to California in 2022. This is the first time I've played it in that room.

Four songwriters trading songs — Dave Hamilton, The Ramblers, Crooked Shoes and me. Two hours, ten dollars, and a room that actually listened, which is rarer than it should be.

Thank you to everyone who came out.

"Melissa" written by Gregg Allman and Steve Alaimo.

The newsletter is free on Substack, a letter from the archive every couple of weeks: https://read.sunturtlestudio.com/subscribe?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=live_lucinda

☀️🐢 SunTurtle Studios® · Valley of the Moon 🌙 · 1 Archive – 100 Years

09/04/2026

"I was young, but now I'm old… but I just don't care."

This one's mine. An original from The Journeyman, and it's the freedom song — the one you only earn after enough years that other people's opinions stop weighing anything.

It's a walk down the open road, hand in hand with the love that wasn't supposed to work. People used to say we'd never work it out. I never knew what they were talking about.

Under the defiance, it's pure joy. The broken heart that isn't broken now, the wandering days finally through, and a plan to just grow old together. Even in stormy weather, the sun is shining when we're together.

I'm playing it Sunday at The Lost Church in Santa Rosa — four songwriters trading songs, doors 1:30, music 2:15 to 4:00, ten dollars.

The newsletter is free on Substack, a letter from the archive every couple of weeks: https://read.sunturtlestudio.com/subscribe?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=jukebox_dontcare

☀️🐢 SunTurtle Studios® · Valley of the Moon 🌙 · 1 Archive – 100 Years

09/01/2026

This Sunday afternoon I'm playing The Lost Church in Santa Rosa.

545 Mendocino Avenue. Doors at 1:30, music from 2:15 to 4:00, ten dollars. It's the Sunday Songwriter's Sing-Along — Dave Hamilton, The Ramblers, Crooked Shoes and me, twenty-five minutes each, trading songs. Every set ends with something the room can sing, and the room does sing.

Most of what I've made this year goes out on a screen. This one doesn't. It's a room, on a Sunday afternoon, and I'd like to see some faces I know in it.

Lost Church SR

08/28/2026

Ted Williams was filmed at Fenway 1941 Number 9 by my grandfather in this reel — I was there 70 years later filming on an iPhone. Very cool!😎
Full story on Substack — link in bio.

08/27/2026

I grew up in Red Sox country,

Every home game at Fenway, middle of the eighth, the whole park sings this one. Three thousand miles away at HopMonk in Novato, it turns out it works exactly the same — I got about four bars in and the room took it away from us.

That's the thing about this song. It doesn't belong to whoever's holding the microphone.

Full performance is in the comments.

☀️🐢 SunTurtle Studios® · Valley of the Moon 🌙 · 1 Archive – 100 Years

08/26/2026

Rojo and I at the HopMonk in Novato — "The 59th Street Bridge Song."

He plays electric, and then he picks up the harmonica, and the whole thing changes. We've been finding harmonies together before and I think we're onto something.

Fifty-eight years old, that song. Simon wrote it about slowing down and looking around. Feels about right for a Tuesday night in Novato.

More from the studio every other Friday in The Journeyman Project — my free newsletter on Substack: https://read.sunturtlestudio.com/subscribe

☀️🐢 SunTurtle Studios® · Valley of the Moon 🌙 · 1 Archive – 100 Years

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224 Vintage Way
Novato, CA
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