I have been a songwriter for my own enjoyment for over 40 years. My greatest early influences were Bob Dylan, Paul Simon and Phil Ochs. I did the coffee-house scene in the 60’s, writing songs and poetry. I fell in love, got married and put it all away until the late 80’s. Later, for almost 3 years, my job put me on the road for a week at a time. So with nothing to do in the evenings, I brought out the old guitar and notebook. I also joined a local songwriting group “The Songwriters and Poets Critique” in Grove City, Ohio. The funny part is I sort of joined the group by proxy since I was working out of state and my wife was attending the bi-monthly meetings in my behalf. The songwriters in the group were definitely “bent” towards Country as the push was to send tapes to Nashville. My Folk background made me sound a little different at first (too many chord changes), but after a while, I got the hang of it. Remember, Country Radio music in the eighties was a whole lot different back then. Country was still more “tears-in-your-beers” songs, rather than stories with clever twists, as it is today. I wrote another 140 or more songs. I had a few produced by little mail-order demo studios and mailed them to Nashville, just like everyone else in the group. I must have mailed out 100 tapes to record companies, producers and publishers. If so, 99 of them came back. I did get a publishing contract with a little record company in Smyrna Georgia. The song was never recorded and the ownership reverted back to me. My wife and I moved to Florida in 1991 to renovate a house left to me by my mother. It was like the parents who ran away from home from their children. My son was working full-time, and my daughter was working part-time and going to college, so we left. Really we had, in all good intentions, to return to Ohio. I packed up all of my songwriting stuff and threw it in the closet, again. We were too busy cleaning, painting, plumbing and everything else that you do to a house that was built in 1953. I went through 3 or 4 jobs. Finding work in my usual profession was getting harder and harder. In 1989, I took a lowly state government position, just for the security and benefits. When my renovation was complete, my son moved down to be with us and our daughter got married in Ohio. Since then we’ve moved to the other side of town, into what was a 55 and older community. Since I had a little spare time (and an itch), out came the old guitar and notebook, in 2003. I tried to get my “touch” back for about a year when I joined the Tampa Chapter of Just Plain Folks around the spring of 2004. Mind you, I never did really like to perform my own material and had never been on a stage (unless you count reading my poetry back in the 60’s). With a lot of coaching and patience from the Chapter Coordinator, Al Alvarez, I started performing my own material live. So far, I’ve never done the same song twice at a JPF Chapter meeting and I usually get a lot of positive feedback. I’ve even did a couple of songs with a complete back-up band. From time to time, I even attend an open mike or two. Gasoline costing what it does and I live ‘way north of about everything, that limits me to how many things I get to do. One club member started a Recording Studio in his house and my wife gave me the old “now-or-never” speech. So here it is, a 14 song CD titled “This Ol’ Guitar” the cover song based on my old flat-top Guild.
So far, I’ve had internet radio airplay on a few www.bspass.com shows. Also maybe some real radio airplay on WSLR of Sarasota. A second CD is in the planning stages. My manuscript notebook has over 400 lyrics to date.
Hello Don, nice seeing you yesterday at La Casa Dolce, they have a really neat thing going on with the open mic. Hope to see you soon. Warmest Regards to you and your wife.
Thank you for your friend's request, best wishes for you on this and all seasons. Check out our brand new two songs when inspiration hits at 5 am. Hope to see you soon.!
Been meaning to thank you for the add. Always enjoy your tunes at La Casa Dolce. There are a couple of your songs that remind me of John Prine. Looks forward to hearing you again.
Hey Don, you sounded great last night at J.P.F.! It was really excellent the way you got everyone involved in singing along too! You never stop amazing me. We look forward to seeing you very soon.
Thanks for the kind words, Don. I'm sorry I missed your performance. I was getting ready to turn into a pumpkin, so I headed out earlier than I would have liked.
