The term late bloomer probably fits me well. Though I certainly had a desire to study music and become a musician when I was a kid, being raised by a single mom, the money was never there. My mom loved music. We went to see film productions of the Broadway musicals of the time, Oklahoma!, West Side Story, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, you name it, multiple times. The sound tracks of the same played on the record player frequently, whenever the TV was not on. Since my mom had to work, I also got a heavy dose of AM Top 40 watching my teenage baby sitters dance to it in our living room. And since my family background was blue collar white working class, Saturday evening, we watched the Grand Ole Opry. Since my mom worked in bars, I spent a lot of time in them hearing mostly C&W. Anyway, the air seemed always saturated with music.
The problem for me, the aspiring young musician to be, was that there were no musicians in the family. Around age 11, my desires to join the band at school become frustrated to the point that I gave up. I just assumed that I would never be a musician. Pencil and paper were cheap and at hand. Drawing became my creative outlet. Every now and then I produced something that was good enough that people complimented. In my first couple of years of university level education I studied Fine Arts. I wanted to be a painter.
But then came this awful summer in which I ended up living in my car. I lost my nerve. Long story short I spent most of my adult life doing IT jobs. To this day, I pay my bills building and maintaining websites.
But if one has the need to make music down deep in their being, and I think that all humans do to varying degrees, it will find its expression somehow. Here is how it happened for me: Immediately out of high school I became, for a brief time, entangled in the military. This was the time of the first OPEC oil embargo. The economic circumstances and my habit of blowing off one work opportunity after another led me to being unemployed and somewhat desperate to escape the bleakness of St Louis, MO in the winter. One slushy day, I trudged past a Navy recruiting office. Even though I was quite aware of how evil and corrupt the US government and the military were, and still are, I betrayed my beliefs for economic reasons. Six months after I joined, I went AWOL from the Naval Training Center in Millington, TN. I had to reckon with that by doing a dozen weeks of brig time several months later. But, before I turned myself in, I had quite an adventure hitch hiking out West and up and down the coast of California. I mention all of this because during this time a dear friend whom I met on the road, a person of capacious generosity and kindness, someone who took me in off the street really, who also happened to be an amazing guitarist and songwriter, introduced me to playing guitar. We lost touch after I let myself get sucked back down the materialist whirlpool that is white St Louis. Anyway, he gave me one of the best gifts that anyone could receive.
But even though I started playing guitar way back then at age 19, it is really only in recent years that I have dared to call myself a musician. For many years I had stage fright. Since I never performed in front of anyone except close friends and family, I never really endeavored to educate myself musically. I learned to strum and finger pick over chords in the order they appeared over the staff, which I was really curious about but didn’t have the time to delve into. What playing guitar and singing gave to me all of those years of work and family responsibilities was a much needed emotional outlet. They still do. The benefit of that alone makes me so grateful to have started playing. It is something so essential to my being. I go downhill quickly if I can’t make music of some kind.
Through the years I did dabble with song writing but never seriously. They were chord diagrams with lyrics that I have forgotten. But as my musical knowledge has grown, it has inevitably led me to composition. Just humming or singing over a newly learned chord progression is a reflex. It is that combination of playing and singing a harmony to go with that is that thing that brings me the deepest joy and sorrow, that expression of my very soul. It is why I keep coming back, after embarrassing performances and all. Putting words to the feeling makes it all a complete message, my heart to yours. Finally, in the last few years with the isolation of the pandemic and a subsequent reordering of personal priorities, I have intensified my studies. I am now a perpetual student of Youtube U.
About twenty years ago, again kind friends pushed me along on my journey by urging me to play a song at a backyard barbecue. Another invited me into a band. Next thing you know I was up in front of small audiences performing. I was terrified, and rightfully so because I really sucked. But I did learn the value of music theory. The study and exploration of that and all of the things that go into making music and recording it have progressively turned into a passion. All along the way there have been friends and teachers who showed me the way.
I should mention that I am an activist. One other area of interest for me has been environmental matters. While doing those IT jobs, I earned a degree in environmental studies at night and on weekends. Like anyone who is informed by mostly I hope reliable sources, I am freaking out about our current circumstances. The more one digs into environmental issues, the more they will find out how connected and interrelated they are with all of our other social ills. It can all be summed up by saying that we are a culture that values the acquisition and maintenance of property over life. We appear to be doomed because of our collective inability to change that. I feel compelled to use my platform to suggest to those who hear my songs that we can change. We must try at least.
And finally BTW, I am a trans woman. I spent most of my life in the closet about that too.
I hope that you enjoy my recordings as much as I love making them. There should be more. As you might guess from all of the above, I have plenty of life experiences that are great song material, just in case the times in which we live were not already enough.