The Legacy of a Dying Lyricist

  Let me start by saying; I have liver disease and I am dying. I didn't plan this-- in fact I wasn't aware that I was dying until it was too late to mitigate the disease

Now it can only be healed by a transplant but the available organs are limited so the available organs are made available on the basis of need. The most ill but most likely to survive the transplant surgery are allocated a donated organ. Then it is in God's and the surgeon's hands.

There are some people I have known who would say this is a just and fair punishment. I won't say that in some respects they are wrong for the way they feel. There are some mistakes you cannot fix or apologize as a song I wrote says

"There are some things you just can't do...

and some things Love won't fix."

So what's the point of this blog?

The point is to set down the words and the songs that I have been gifted with over the last fifty years and in turn gift them to those who care to listen. I'm not seeking forgiveness or to make excuses. That is pointless at this stage of my life but still there are some things that need to be said in this preamble.

In January of this year (2022) I lost my wife of 28 years to COVID-19. We had known one another for 33 years. She had been the one who had given me (that is allowed me to buy) three of the ten guitars I own. Two of those three are worth the most (when I bought them they were valued at about $1500 -- I guess I'm a cheap date). We'll talk about my cheap collection as we go along.

There is one thing you need to understand: the values of an instrument is more than how much you paid for it or how much you sell it for. It's true value is what has it given you in life, love, and play? How does it make you feel how does it make your friends feel? With that let me begin the story of  who I have been and who I am.

If I could I'd put together a band who loves these songs as I do, to play and record the music and lyrics that will appear here; but that isn't very likely. I've never been a really social person.

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For most of my life I have been a "Jack of all Trades but Master of None". I've worked in manufacturing in electronics, a QA analyst and programmer for a rocket engine manufacturer, a test technician for a small electronic test lab, a network administrator for an Internet Start-up,  Hollywood oriented accounting company, and for a 12 branch financial institution. 

I've played guitar and synthesizer and created sounds both natural and not so natural.  I've composed and arraigned music and created sound designs for small theaters and even won an award or two. Occasionally I have publicly performed my music.

Along the way I became a convict and died via an overdose of anti-depressants--  within the walls of prison-- only to be rescued by two convicts: one was an armed robber and the other a murderer .They restarted my heart and then they like Angels (Malakim) watched over me until I returned to my senses on the third day. They told me that I didn't need to die.

At that point I realized I had gotten lost spiritually so I began to look for the path to which I belonged. Eventually I found that path which I now walk. Let me be clear that I discovered there is no "Only Way". There is no spiritual truth that excludes all others. Leonard Cohen, one of the greatest modern poets and lyricists, was both an Observant Jew and a Zen Buddhist priest. 

But I'm not here to tell you about spirituality or whatever. I'm here to tell a story of lyrics and music and how I got here. The realization of where I was, made me look at where I had been, the words that I had written and the things I had lost and found. It also pointed the way I needed to go.

Recently I discovered Jeremy Sheppard.'s YouTube channel "Become a Guitar Hunter" It is a channel dedicated to finding the right guitar and along the way build friendships and make music. I haven't personally met Jeremy but he is personable and teaches his way of finding the right instruments and sharing his discoveries. 

In many ways I don't need to go chasing after guitars. They seem to come chasing me to teach me the lessons only they can teach. As he has shown the way, I won't cut any corners as I retell how I got to where I am and maybe share some of the words and music I've written.

The first guitar I bought with my own money was a Yamaha FG-230 12 String Guitar. I named it "Elijah". Like most cheap instruments it had string action problems [the height of the strings to the fret board] and therefore was a bit hard to play but just the same it sounded wonderful. Soon I realized while the 12 string was good for performing it was not one on which one could easily write songs.

 The story really starts in 1973 with a $100 guitar in the Canoga Park, CA, Ernie Ball guitar shop (this was one of the first Ernie Ball Stores) which was tucked in beside a party rentals store  on Topanga Canyon Blvd. near Sherman Way. There I found a Gibson J-50 guitar which looked something like this one (which I currently own)

Actually the one pictured above is in better condition. I named the guitar "Albert" which means "All Bright" which is what he was for the 12 years I owned him.

At that time I had already been writing lyrics for five years. I wasn't very good but who is in the beginning? Unless you happen to be David Paich [Sonny and Cher, Boz Scaggs, Toto, etc.] whom I graduated high school with and performed a song with him at the Chaminade Preparatory 1972 Senior Year Concert. I guess he thought I had a good enough voice since he asked me. Unlike David I was strictly "Armature Hour" since I didn't play an instrument.

You might be asking why does a vocalist / lyricist need a guitar? After all they have someone to write the music for them.  Right?

It was simple. My best friend of the time told me that he had set his sights on getting a Phd. in Physics from UCLA and would not have time to write and play music with me;. So there I was in need of a guitar and I could not afford a better instrument so I bought this train wreck with strings and began to teach myself to play.

The top was cracked and it buzzed at times but it had an "easy, fast" neck which allowed me to play and write for hours at a time. Much of what I wrote at the time is in a storage box somewhere which given where its stored probably means it has been turned to paper pulp.

Later that year a luthier spotted me playing my Gibson. He wanted to fix it for me. To make his point he offered to trade my broken down Gibson  for a 1967 Gibson 12 string. which at the time was priced 4 times what I paid for the J-50. Two years and a $150 later I got back my repaired guitar-- boy it was sweet. It planted the seeds for a number of songs. Which we'll talk about next time.

updated on 6/30/2022 to include mention of "Elijah" the 12 String and some clarification about the "1972 Senior Year Concert".