It’s been months since I made my first posts here. I’ve long wanted to start writing about music, but it’s such a broad topic for me that I haven’t known where to start. I’ve decided to start in a happy place, because that’s where I am this morning, by giving everyone some basic background.
Music has been the driving force through most of my life. Even as an infant I have memories of exploring sounds and sonic textures; not much later I was singing songs from my crib, and not long after that I was harmonizing with my sister in church. She and I were quite the dog-and-pony show at the time: two little girls with “miraculous” voices who sang hymns like angels. The church ladies, of course, thought we were touched by God, but it was really just genetics and a bit of luck.
You see, my mother’s family were all musically inclined, and holiday get-togethers were often punctuated by songs we’d sing a cappella in three or four-part harmony. I got it honestly. It’s literally in my blood.
As I got older, I started learning about the nuts and bolts of making music, playing violin, ukulele and then piano. I never got very far with any of it because I didn’t have the patience (or attention span) to really study music. I would hear my teacher play something, and I’d play it back while only pretending to read the music. My ear has always been faster than my eyes. I picked up a little music theory — just enough to be able to shakily sight read for violin and voice — but that was about it.
As a teen coming of age in the seventies, I immersed myself in the music of the day, with heavy emphasis on the psychedelic and progressive artists of the time. I loved the intricate harmonies and rhythmic complexity in this music, as well as the emotional journey evoked by these sounds. These were the days when you’d put a record on the turntable, put on your headphones, and sink into another realm, one that lasted roughly the same amount of time as an album side.
On a personal level, my life was not quite as spectacular as the music I loved. As you might imagine, I was a geeky kid who did not have a lot of social savvy and primarily wanted to escape a rather dreary lot in life. I was often accused of using music as a means of escape, and it was true. It was also all I wanted to do, but I had no idea how to make that happen.
I did the usual high-school garage band thing, and had one show with that band (during which I was almost electrocuted, but that’s another interesting story) and after high school I drifted off into a somewhat confusing world of exploring what might be out there for a geeky misfit like myself.
Eventually I was introduced to other musicians, and by the time I was 19 I was working as a singer doing lead vocals and harmonies with local bands on a regional tour circuit. It was during this time that I decided to pick up the bass guitar.
Because I already knew something about stringed instruments, it was relatively easy to hear and reproduce some bass lines. At the time I was working in a trio with two guitarists who also sang. I thought the bass would add some needed rhythmic elements to what we did, so I bought one and worked out bass parts to a couple of songs to play at our shows the following week. That was how I started out as a bassist.
Over the next ten years I would play that circuit in various bands, ranging from that trio to a large R&B band that toured the east coast, a four-piece rockabilly act, a five-piece band that had a very large regional following, and finally settling in with a four piece ensemble of guitar, bass, drums and keyboards. Throughout all of this time I would be mentored both actively and passively by others I worked with who were older and wiser than I was. I learned more about music here than I ever could have in school.
That final band played several nights a week from the mid to the late 80’s, and that was when I decided that I wanted to experience life from a different perspective. I was tired of looking out into a sea of faces having fun on a Saturday night while I was perpetually working. My life was upside down, dominated by music and musicians, and I had almost no opportunity for a regular social life. So I quit the music business, moved to a new city and began to explore what I liked to call “normal life.”
During the ensuing decades, I would drift in and out of musical pursuits or music-related activities. I wrote and recorded a lot of music on my own, worked in a large music store for five years, recorded two albums as a co-writer and vocalist with a progressive/fusion band in the late 90’s, and ultimately subverted my own musical interests in favor of what I now understand to have been a toxic relationship with an immensely talented but highly flawed domestic partner. I quit music again and wasted seven years of my life in that situation before finally ending that relationship and moving to California. (A ton of detail omitted here; I may go into this at some point in the future).
California. What can I say about California? It’s everything I needed it to be, and so much less. I worked a good job here, got married, retired with a small pension and some investments, and settled into retired life with the goal of making music again. I have a comfortable life, and that wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t come here.
At retirement age, it’s not realistic to think I would pick up in music where I left off. Any big promise music might have held for me had been subverted by the passage of time. I should mention here that other people might have held on well enough to do two things at once, but working against me from a pretty early age has been a post-viral syndrome (think of something similar to long Covid) that limits my energy levels and drains my batteries more quickly than a normal person’s. I could make a living with a day job, or I could do music and play in bands, but I was not able to do both.
In retirement, however, I can pretty much do what I want, because I have adequate rest time (usually) and what I wanted to do from the moment I left my job was to play music again. I had a few false starts with musical projects that turned out to be limiting in various ways, but it wasn’t too long before I had picked up the bass guitar again and found myself working with a pretty decent group of players.
That’s where the fun starts. Multiple decades out from making a living in music, I’ve found that things have changed in the live music business, by quite a lot. It’s an adjustment I’m still getting used to, five years on.
More about that in coming posts. I have lots of thoughts about this.