My Bio: Based on my true story...
My name is Elyssa James and I was born in Alaska during the Klondike
Gold Rush of 1896. Being raised in the cutthroat, merciless, gold
miner’s world of greed and ruthlessness was a rough, unforgiving way to
be brought up but prepared me for realities I would have to face years
later in the Music Business. As a young girl I stood by my father’s
side as he spent year after year searching fruitlessly for that elusive
treasure that would change our lives. My two older bothers, barely more
than toddlers, almost broke their young backs working hand in hand with
my father. But they, too, grew strong.
One night Papa James awoke suddenly from a dream. "Awake, my darling
children," he shouted, "I have had a vision tonight that there is a
land of plenty and a life of ease awaiting us across the ocean." And
so, that morning, as a biting chill gripped my flesh, I climbed into
the rickety ark that my father had built that night for our journey and
sailed across the Pacific to the enchanted land of Hawaii.
The seas were mercilessly rough and because my father forgot to pack
any food we went hungry for days until we chanced upon a whaling
schooner that had just finished a successful hunt. Our hearts leaped
with joy as they took us aboard and fed us with delicious whale
blubber. We slept peacefully that night on bellies sated with savory
whale meat and grog. In the morning we bid farewell to the jolly crew
and continued our voyage in an ark filled with sustenance provided by
the generous men of the good ship Pequod.
The remainder of our odyssey was thankfully uneventful except for the
time we saw a beautiful mermaid riding a giant dolphin across a
glistening glissade of golden waves.
Our first sight of our new home was an emotionally overwhelming
experience. I cried and watched my teardrops fall gracefully into the
clear blue waters. We anchored close to shore and swam the rest of the
way to the beach where a crowd of happy, dancing Hawaiians greeted us
with open arms.
The next day, after an evening of celebrating in a wild orgy of local
beer, roasted pig, and indiscriminate necking, we awoke in jail. It
seems that the authorities had found our blessed whale meat on board
the ark and that we had violated an international law that prohibited
the killing of whales. "We didn’t kill the whales, we just ate the
meat," my father protested to the judge. But it was to no avail and we
were sentenced to exile from this idyllic environment and banished to a
dark place far, far away on the other side of the great American
Kingdom. Our dreaded destination would be the city in which my brothers
and I would spend most of our formative years...the city of Rochester,
New York.
My days in Rochester were spent toiling on the small farm that my
father had leased from Mr. MacDonald, the local robber baron. I milked
cows, baled hay, plucked chickens, churned butter, chopped wood, picked
cotton and went to school in the little one room red schoolhouse five
miles down the road.
Every morning, eager to learn, I skipped merrily down the dirty, dusty,
sometimes muddy, byway, singing silly songs I had concocted, to
discover what new lessons would be awaiting my young, curious mind. As
fate would have it, one day, while on my way to school, I saw a large
object in the woods and detoured off the road to see what it was. As I
got closer I recognized the entity as something I had once seen in a
magazine...an instrument called "piano." I touched its keys and a
wonderful sound rang out. My heart was captured.
I pushed the piano deeper into the woods, out of sight from any
passersby, and from that day on, come rain, snow, hail, locusts or
angel of death, I would sneak off into the forest to play my secret
treasure. There, among the tall oak trees that surrounded me and amidst
the dozens of curious forest creatures who became my audience and
allies, I played my piano and wrote my songs. Then on a warm, sparkling
summer day, a beautiful woman, playing the flute, who called herself
Euterpe, Muse of Lyric Song, paid me an unexpected visit.
"I am Euterpe, Muse of Lyric Song, and I have been listening to you
singing your songs. I also have some connections in the music
business."
Thus it happened. Little Elyssa James, ocean voyager, Alaskan native,
Hawaiian exile, forest chanteuse and friend to the furry inhabitants of
the woods of Rochester, was discovered by a muse of song who knew
people in the Business and, as if sprinkled by magic dust, was
introduced to the Lords and Ladies of the kingdom called Sony/ATV, who
welcomed the sweet songbird into the halls of their golden realm where
she can now sing her songs and play her piano for the whole world...
happily ever after.
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