Point A to point B ~ and all the sideroads!

I've never done a blog before...perhaps I'm doing it all wrong, but....... that has never stopped me in the past.

Phase 1 (background)

I decided I wanted into music on February 9th 1964 (google that date). By into I mean...somehow, someway, I wanted to go in that direction. I didn't think "yea drums!" or "yea guitar player!" simply "yea!" A recognition of huge proportions to my 14 year old mind, dare I say the first! (Ok girls were neat but this seemed attainable.) Never fancying myself a great talent at much of anything this for some reason unknown to me seemed right.

Flash forward to a boy singing in a car along with the radio when his father said solemnly "son, they get paid to sing" Oh lord my first taste of rejection! Still.... that was dad and I always struggled to make him proud. Now onto my incessant record listening and howling until finally my parents proclaimed "if you're going to make that noise at least know what you're doing." So with my first piece of junk guitar (which I had no part in choosing) I was promptly sent to a tv repair store where the owner taught guitar lessons in the back. A very unhappy man with the disposition of a prickly pear cactus.
I thought to myself "heck I can get yelled at when I'm home, why should I give up a perfectly good saturday for this?" So I said..."changed my mind I don't want to play guitar." I didn't give up on music....just letting someone teach me formally I suppose. (Remember that moms and dads...bad guitar, bad teacher, leaves bad taste in a kids mouth)

Somewhere along the way after that harrowing experience I picked up a $3.00 Hohner Marine Band Harmonica...and learned Love Me Do through trial and error....once again no training....simply raw desire...and to this day I play the dang thing backwards and upside down. I also enjoyed what I called singing and what others may have called other things.
I was bound and determined to "make it" (whatever that means) The dream was growing daily and my already fertile Walter Mitty type imagination only fanned the fires of my private fantasy.

Phase 2 (the runaway)



It was a tumultuous part of my life....a Navy brat plopped down to grow up in a new environment facing his first public school with far too few rules and far too many temptations, cliques of kids everywhere that grew up together and separated along well defined lines. Well lets see I'm not a redneck...I'm not a jock...certainly not a studious nerd....not a thug....wait...a group of outcasts called musicians! BINGO! They actually accepted me...not as a fellow musician....... just as me!
Things necessarily got harder as I aged (15 to 18), conflicts and donnybrooks...and all I could think of was "getting out"
I'll show them!...they'll see!

So at legal age I left, no safety net no real plans beyond leaving....and ended up living with my best friend, his brother and their Mom. No band no prospects beyond that never ending dream of someday. I don't know how long I spent as what I affectionately remember as my "Band-aid days."
(Carrying drums and mics and amps for the different guys in bands...and gladly being a small part of all of it)
Then I got to audition for a local group as their lead singer....I blew the audition but when I went home my buddys brother asked me if I wanted to start a group with him. YOU BET!

I won't reveal the name of the first group...suffice it to say it was more than a bit pretentious.....wrapped in a whispered suggestion that we were wise beyond our years. Normal stuff for the times I suppose.
We made barely enough to eat on but those are still some of my fondest memories.

Phase 3 (This is serious now)



After a few bands and a few times with no bands I was offered a spot in a local group that was reshuffling its members. We were good...there was allot of talent and we got along pretty well. (Actually there were tensions I remained unaware of both purposely and innocently). We were local and growing then decided to make the move to the BIG CITY to be discovered. Lock, stock and barrel gathering our belongings we moved. Long story short we were signed within two weeks to a record contract.
Some of us were not of legal age (21) to sign so our parents had to. I remember my Dads eyes when I handed him the contract...he was both intrigued and maybe a bit proud that I was actually doing something that wasn't simply "avoiding getting a real job" anymore.

We were the most determined bunch of kids. Worked harder than ever before. Polishing and repolishing our songs for the studio. "the studio!" It was actually happening. I was writing lyrics....I was the lead singer in a group of 5 good voices.

In the studio we quickly learned we didn't know how to tune our instruments very well....that we had issues with timing....time was money and I sang flat!...Nearly crestfallen I sank into despair the likes of which I had never felt before, when our producer told me simply. "Very few people can sing perfectly the first time out...you will learn how to sing in key....don't waste your time dwelling."
So I did....I never got a chance to thank him for that life saver he tossed to me...So to Fred Carroll (RIP) my first and only professional producer I say...."Thank you, you helped me keep going."



The group did well and crested as an opening act for Quicksilver Messenger Service in Houston in 1969.....that was the pinnacle. Oh you wonder about the record company don't you? Another lesson in rolling with the punches. The company went into a legal battle of sorts...the assets we frozen until the courts could settle matters we had nothing to do with and one of the assets was our van!
Yup repossessed leaving us dead in the water.
This was the end of a chapter that took me closer to my childhood dream than I ever had been before.....or ever might be again, but that is ok!!

Phase 4 (Moving on)

Well I suppose many stories might end right there.....I didn't so neither does this one.
In the first few weeks moving back home was very very rough. It was hard not to feel like a failure. I was on my way to becoming a janitor....my Dad helped to get me an interview and things were proceeding forward.

Then there was a knock at the door and a couple of musicians I knew from long ago came in and offered me a job in a local club singing 6 nights a week....one problem I had to play guitar AND sing!
I don't play guitar...."it's ok we will cover you till you can, just turn the volume off and pretend."
The rest they say is history....
I had been in a non stop original band for nearly 5 years up till then and knew very little of what was on the charts. There is a decision to be made.
Much is made of ego when it comes to musicians, I had a choice to make.
1.Retain my pride at being a former original artist and retire to the halls of some office building emptying trash cans and mopping floors or....
2.Realise if I loved music, if I loved performing if I truly loved what that meant to me...try it! Swallow my pride (because that is all it was) and continue doing the one thing I really enjoyed and was qualified for. Whether I was singing my songs or cover material.



The die was cast, the new path set before me.....and I could pay rent too.
So I played for years and years in one band or another all over town in clubs....and adjusted and got decent at it. Luckily most of the jobs were fairly steady work...ranging from a couple of months straight to a few years at a time in one or two gigs. Yea I know...I was blessed.

There was one thing that started to get to me. In order to keep working, I needed at least 3 or 4 other people to surround me because all I did was sing. When I finally said "I want to play guitar too." I was chided and told "just sing, that is what you do." Frustration started to build but I was at the same time in progressively better and better bands. There it was once again, a crossroads of sorts either keep doing something that works or strike out for another goal that continued to nag at me, it took allot to chuck it all and for all intents and purposes start all over. What else could I do?...If I continued this way I would eventually become bitter and lose the one thing that kept me motivated, that stoked that fire...."desire!"



Again a new path, again uncharted horizons......
On a side note I want to explain at this point, I adopted the "Shade Tree" moniker when I remembered my dad explaining when I was young that a shade tree mechanic was one who learned from watching those more proficient at a given task . So Shade Tree guitar playing is what I know, no schooling, and don't bother showing me tabs...I don't understand them...I learned from the ground up in the shade of those who towered over me. (remember the upside down and backwards harmonica? I still play it that way)




After a time of duo work where I became relatively decent at accompanying myself I went back to bands and was once more...quite successful! By successful I mean able to support myself in my chosen profession. Once again I landed a nearly 5 year 6 night a week house job...(I had no idea how rare such a thing was) yes I was blessed in so many ways.

The final end to the final band was a strange combination of sadness and relief. I loved almost every moment of it and those I shared it with. But it was time to set off again to take care of myself and I have to admit I was almost ready to quit. A band can take a lot out of you if you aren't really careful. Opinions you count on "inside" the cocoon of a band can become larger than they should be and squabbles can cut deeper than they need be allowed. (It sometimes takes years to see the way things really were)



Duo work followed for the next nearly 18 years then a few years as a single act...travelling ~ travelling ~ travelling...these were the days when my love of driving took hold. Through the 80's and 90's technology got better and better and the "artificial" sounds of synths and drum machines began approaching tolerable levels. I still tend to sing flat but my timing is spot on... (.....except when it isn't)



In the end the very last gig I had went to DJ status and I can admit to feeling put out to pasture...it was sobering. Depression was knocking at the door. I had ALWAYS worked, I had ALWAYS paid my own way, I had ALWAYS found another path to follow...not this time. Where was my crossroads? Where was my scary new path?

Phase 5 (Upping the ante)

Then one day an email from an old friend from 30 plus years back came to me. "Hey John you ought to come to Songramp and put some songs up for everyone to hear". No way! I had put original music and all the stuff that came with it to bed in 1981....besides, I simply write lyrics and the occasional music (most of which more talented players around me had to fix). Nah! thanks anyway but that part of my life is finished. My friend wrote back that it was a wonderful place to be part of and I would really like it. Again I scoffed! Only remembering the last time I wrote something that was sent down in flames by an opinion I held far too highly. "Thanks anyway...but I don't write anymore."

I want to take this moment to thank from the bottom of my heart Mr. Mike Prather for being the kind of friend who simply wouldn't give up.


Eventually I uploaded an old old song from around 1979 made on a cassette deck which I managed to mix to mono...I then began to cringe and wait for the hammer to fall. "you are a fool to think you can drum up anything after all these years." were the words of my INNER best friend! "some guys just don't know when to give it up" He repeated.
Then some of the kindest and most supportive reviews came in....you have no idea what that meant to me.



Well here I am today and counting myself more than lucky to have found and old dear friend and a whole passel of new ones. As well as discovering I wasn't used up....just preparing myself for the next step all along...funny how things work out. These are the best days of my life. Thank you all for your friendship. Thanks to all of the wonderful collaborators who decided to give my stuff a whirl!! Every single one of you have lifted me up to a place I never dreamed I might reach one day. I guess I'm back!



John