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jan. 25 '07

put up a new tune today on the songs page called 'in a dream that i had'. a true story and then some. it's about a friend of mine, kenny moore. we played in tina turner's band together for a lot of years. if you've seen any of tina's concert videos, you no doubt remember him. he was her right hand for 20 years, playing piano and singing, just a wonderful musician and performer, a really unusual amount of charisma. he also was a pretty incredible guy offstage, just loved people so much. very friendly and warm and everyone loved him back. on a big tour like that, there's always lots of people coming and leaving, crew guys, production people. he knew every one of their names, wives, husbands, kids, always asked after them. when kenny saw somebody new, he'd give them a big smile and a greeting. if the person snubbed him for whatever reason, too shy, suspicious, kenny would say "i'll get 'em, i'll get 'em". and he would, too. a week later they'd be sitting together at dinner laughing up a storm.

kenny died on tour in 1997 in australia, peacefully in his sleep. we found out later he had a tear in his heart. his doctor told him not to go out on the road but he loved performing and touring and never told anybody.

a week before he passed, i had the most amazing dream about him. i dreamt he was performing in my old grammar school auditorium. the place was packed and he had them on fire. he didn't even have a band with him. he was playing and singing and dancing and even i was surprised he was that great. the dream woke me up early and when i went out, i saw kenny outside the hotel. i was starting to describe the dream to him when i saw he'd come back from town with a book on dream interpretation. he wasn't into that kind of stuff so i assumed he must have had a doozie last night, too. i took the book out of the bag and thumbed through it for a while and something told me not to ask why he bought it or to compare dreams, all of a sudden it seemed a little too personal.

well, as i said, he was gone the next week. the tour rolled on and tina got a new piano player. we finished later that year and i moved into a new house. a week or two after settling in i had another recurring dream about kenny. i just walk into a room i don't recognize and there he is, with a big smile on his face and his arms open. we hug for a long time and it wakes me up.

in calling around a little, i found that a couple of other people were having lovely dreams about kenny around the same time. and if you knew kenny moore, you'd know he'd be just the kind of guy who'd come back and say one more goodbye to his friends, and sweet enough to wait until we had a chance to catch our breath.

april 7, 07

#3 today. it's called disrepair and i wrote it as kind of an exercise. i'm interested in learning more about what makes up a musical style. as a kid i'd always hear from my father and other older people how music was going to hell, 'no melodies anymore'. and i'd hear how singers like frank sinatra couldn't find new songs they could sing. certainly, looking back, there were a lot of great songwriters in the '60's, but i agreed with the older singers. when people of their generation would sing a good beatles song, say, it sounded pretty bad to me. made me realize there's just some aspects of style as a reflection of what's going on in the culture i can't put my finger on. so i tried to write a song that i thought frank sinatra or somebody of his generation would sound natural singing, but that wasn't coming from strictly an american songbook place, and would also seem natural from the perspective of my generation. don't know if i succeeded or not, but i guess anything that gets you thinking and writing is good.

july 4, '07

the new song is called 'closer to nowhere'. i couldn't decide whether to do it solo, and highlight the emotion of the lyric, or with a group and feature the harmony and chord structure. i kept thinking as i recorded them both that one version would jump out as better to me but it never did, so i put them both up to let you decide, or not decide like i did.
i feel very lucky to be recording music at a time when we can be so informal about it all. it's such a kick, especially at my age, when it was always about mailing cassette tapes to anyone you wanted to hear your music (which because of the hassle, was usually only to someone at a company you hoped might give you money for it, making the process totally fraught with fear). i guess young people take it for granted, but i just can't get over how wonderful it is to write a song, record it, put it up and hear back from people all around the world. unbelievable to me.
we've got advertisements invading every possible inch of our space, people calling us with recorded announcements every other hour, a world that's looking braver and newer every day, but we've got this (should i be cynical and say 'for now'. nah.).

july 5, '07

i'll be playing on friday, july 20 at the starving artist cafe on city island, ny. no cover, no minimum. wasn't planning on playing live till i'd recorded 10 or 12 of my songs, but it's a really sweet little place, the gig came up and i thought i'd jump on in. it'll be 2 sets, 1st at 8, 2nd around 9. just me with my guitar, piano and larynx, plus i'll probably lay down a couple of tracks so i can blow a little bit of horn as well. wish me luck.

oh yeah, the hair's gone, too. much as i've had it since i was 11 and the david crosby song has always stayed in my mind whenever i wanted to cut it (and a real belief in what it stood for when i was a kid), i figured when you wash it and instantly put it in an elastic band, it's time to go. i guess my freak flag will have to fly in my words and actions, a little tougher.

oct. 19, '07

boy, it really took me a long time to put up this song. it was just laziness. i felt like taking time off in the summer, just bum around a little, and when i got back to recording again it was like i was doing it for the 1st time, a little hard to focus.

anyway, it's called 'heart on a chain' and it's kind of 2 stories put together. a few years ago i took some salsa dance classes in the city. there were so many lovely, graceful young women there it felt like getting slapped around by beauty for a couple of hours a week. i remember the teacher would always say 'mantequia' to the women for encouragement and there sure was plenty of that. being the middle aged white guy i am and being a beginner, i was way down the totem pole. we'd have to switch partners a lot and i could see the looks of disappointment on their faces when they'd have to dance with me, understandable.

then a few people recognized me from some of tina turner's videos and i got a lot more popular. the same women where now spinning and smiling and helping me. it was a disappointing look at human nature and i'd drive home feeling the weight of it.

at the same time my girlfriend, bernadette, and i were new together and she would tell me how it felt for her to come into her forties. how she wished she'd looked out for herself a little more and not done what she thought she was supposed to.
     for some reason these 2 subjects seemed related and came out together in a song. and for some other reason it came out with a kind of spanish tonality. i don't think this is because of the salsa classes, the musics don't have much in common, but the story seemed like it wanted the flat 2's.

    i'll be playing again at the starving artist cafe on city island in the bronx on friday november 2nd, 2 sets, around 8 &9, no cover, no minimum. i was scared the last time, to get out and play the guitar in public, but they were really nice to me and asked me to come back. hopefully i'll be a little less scared this time (yeah, right).