Gladys Knight, Bonnie Raitt, Joni Mitchell, Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Steve Perry, Janis Joplin, Barbra Streisand, Dusty Springfield, Stevie Nicks, Annie Lennox, Van Morrison, David Gray, Donny Hathaway...
Sounds Like
Sometimes people tell me I sound like James Taylor, Cat Stevens, John Denver... I don't hear it so much, although I like all those singers... One time after performing a set at a coffee house in LA, someone came up to me and told me I reminded them of Donny Hathaway. This blew me away because I think he was so incredible, so sometimes if I feel like I suck, I go back to that wonderful compliment. But I would really like to find out someday what I actually sound like - in otherwords to discover what my own individual expression of music is. I don't think I have ever really tapped into it.
Well, I have not updated this in a really long time. Also I seldom come on here lately so if you have sent me messages and I have not gotten back to you, sorry! I moved out of New York over a year and a half ago into my first house which is in The Columbia Gorge, east of Portland Oregon, which I spent a year and a half so far renovating. In between I have been flying my butt off for jetBlue as a flight attendant, in the middle of my 6th year of flying, recently got my pilot license current, and changed my base to LA so I don't have to commute to New York.
As I write this I am on a short vacation at The Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood, one of the great lodges that Roosevelt commissioned in the 1930's. I am sitting in the lobby under giant wooden beams in a hexagonal room in front of a huge fireplace in my pajamas having coffee. This is the life!!!
I want to thank everyone who has downloaded my digital tracks from iTunes and other music downloading sites. That first album is going on 10 years old (some of the songs were recorded over 10 years ago) and it is really cool that people still like them enough to download them. Thanks!
Honestly I don't know if I am going to continue my singing career, except that lately I have been singing in church! my little Christian Science church in The Dalles Oregon, as a soloist. It is different because it is without a mike, and with a pipe organ! But it is good experience and plus it pays!
If I record any new music, you will be the first to hear it here on MySpace since it is the easiest way to get new songs out there.
Like I said before, I am not sure where things are going to go with music. I am open to carrying on with the singing, but it would have to take on a more meaningful path musically. I am not much of a writer as far as songs, so it would consist in choosing material and finding musicians to share the experience with. If this unfolds, great. Every time I try to push it, it doesn't work, so I have to LET at this point. I live in a very serene place now where just BEING is a pretty wonderful thing. Discovering what my true purpose and usefulness is now is what I am most interested in. And expressing love. If music is a part of this journey, then I'm willing to move with it. Until then, I am starting up a Chaplaincy in the County Jail where I live, like I used to do in the L.A. County Jails. This is my favorite work, and I hope to move into the full time practice of Christian Science healing someday in the near future.
Meanwhile I will be getting catapulted back and forth across the country on jetBlue, as well as buzzing around the pacific northwest in my friend's Bonanza!
Love,
Erik
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A true friend knows your weaknesses but shows you your strengths; feels your fears but fortifies your faith; sees your anxieties but frees your spirit; recognizes your disabilities but emphasizes your possibilities.
“The truth is that there is nothing noble in being superior to somebody else. The only real nobility is in being superior to your former self.” ~ Whitney Young (Civil Rights leader)
Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great. ~ Mark Twain<br /><br />
“I believe the single most significant decision I can make on a day-to-day basis is my choice of attitude. It is more important than my past, my education, my bankroll, my successes or failures, fame or pain, what other people think of me or say about me, my circumstances, or my position. Attitude keeps me going or cripples my progress. It alone fuels my fire or assaults my hope. When my attitudes are right, there is no barrier too high, no valley too deep, no dream too extreme, no challenge too great for me.”<br />~ Charles R. Swindoll quotes (American Writer and Clergyman, b.1934)<br />
“Be of good cheer. Do not think of today’s failures, but of the success that may come tomorrow. You have set yourselves a difficult task, but you will succeed if you persevere; and you will find a joy in overcoming obstacles. Remember, no effort that we make to attain something beautiful is ever lost.” ~ Helen Keller<br />
...Look at everything as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time. Then your time on earth will be filled with glory... ~ Betty Smith
Miss you, Erik...wish we lived closer...you have a peace about you that always made me feel calm. Thank you for your recent help & I will talk to you soon!
smoking in the lavatory or tampering with smoke detectors in aircraft lavatories is a federal offense and will result in a devastating,tragic,heinous,scary, heart wrenching, terrible, exhorbitant, humiliating, evil, life altering FINE! Have a good flight :)
The question for each man to settle is not what he would do if he had means, time, influence and educational advantages; the question is what he will do with the things he has. The moment a young man (woman) ceases to dream or to bemoan his lack of opportunities and resolutely looks his conditions in the face, and resolves to change them, he lays the corner-stone of a solid and honorable success. ~Hamilton Wright Mabie
If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain. If I can ease one life the aching, or cool one pain... or help one fainting robin into his nest again, I shall not live in vain... ~Emily Dickinson
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in all of us. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” ~ Nelson Mandela
My friend...your voice is one of the best I have ever heard. It is truly a gift from God. Please always share it with everyone. I've seen myself how it moves people.
Hey Erik!! Been trying to reach you ... My emails to you are coming back.. I know you're moving but email me please.. I want you to come and sing with me at Smoke on July 27-28.. Miss hearing from you my baby brother... Much love.. Oh and you sound sooooooo beautiful!! Paulette McWilliams
You are blessed with a voice that warms the soul, to me you rank among the top artists. And knowing you, our friendship is one I cherish.. I'm blessed to have met you.
