I got a trumpet when I was ten and I was darn good at it but by the time I got to high school I was too cool for the marching band thing, so I started singing in the chorus. There wasn't any homework and the class was loaded with babes. After a while I became too cool for school altogether (what an idiot) and went to work.
Over the years I somehow managed to always own some sort of an acoustic guitar that I somehow never learned to play. In my late teens I had aquired a few chords from my friend Chuck Watson. Chuck dated my little sister just long enough to teach me the first four bars of "Give a Little Bit" by Supertramp. Every year or so after indulging in one too many beers, I would pull the old Takamini off the stand, blow off the dust and play the first four bars of "Give a Little Bit" until someone complained or until I sobered up enough to realize that the strings were liable to give me tetanus as old and rusty as they were. But regardless of the fact that my old acoustic was more of a piece of furniture than a musical instrument it was always there if I needed it. I just never needed it for anything much more than a decorative item.
In the ninety's, after finding the saving grace of Jesus Christ I found myself in church and enjoying it for the first time in my life. I had joined a very musically progressive church in my area and ended up in the choir (literally). The church was very much multi-racial but since I sang blacker than anyone else in the choir, I got to sing the good stuff. After a few years circumstances led me to believe it was time to retire my black vocalist position and move on but it would always have a lasting effect on my vocal style.
One November day in 2000, after twenty years of working in electrical construction, a marriage, a divorce, a brief career in insurance and long distance sales and twenty-five year cigarette habit I came home, sat in front of the television to watch the presidential election results. For some reason I decided to pry the old guitar of it's perch that night without the usual alcohol encouragement. Thirty something days later the election results were finally settled and I realized that I had held that old acoustic pretty much through the whole thing. I had calluses on my fingers and had figured out all sorts of basic chord progressions that I had never been able to play before. I still couldn't play a guitar but I knew it was possible and I had finally found something to do with my hands besides hold cigarettes with them.
Over the next few months a series of circumstances happened that led me to believe that maybe, just maybe I had spent the majority of my life settling for a profession in electrical construction when I could have and should have pursued the musical desires and ambitions that I failed to follow out of a sense of responsibility. One of the songs that I had now started writing, was brought to the attention of one of the best known A&R executives in Nashville who couldn't legally offer me any help but did really encourage me to think about making the move to Nashville and seriously pursue a career in Songwriting. I spent a couple of months commuting back and forth from Atlanta, doing the tourist songwriter things but soon realized that even though there are some very talented, working songwriters who are lyricist only, if I were going to re-locate and get anyone to really take me seriously, I would need to learn a lot more about the guitar and the songwriting craft in general before I should waste one more minute in Twang Town.
One day it occurred to me. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers , my union in the electrical construction industry has a five year apprenticeship program. Since I couldn't play a guitar and didn't know squat about the songwriting craft, I decided that I would give myself five years to learn an instrument and come back with a plan rather than start waiting tables at the ripe old age of forty. It wasn't long after I decided on the five year plan that 911 came along. Construction work came to a halt in the south and I ended up working around New York off and on but spent most of the next year or two in Boston working on " The Big Dig ".
When you're working out of your home jurisdiction as an IBEW electrician, it's not unusual to have to take the short and shitty jobs so I would spend weeks doing nothing but waiting on my turn to come up and sooner or later go back to work for a month or two if I was lucky. Then I'd sign the "out of work" book and wait on my turn again. That's when I discovered busking !
Before I knew it, I was spending my out of work days playing the "T" (Boston's historical subway system) and sneaking into Faneuil Hall on pretty days playing and singing my ass off. I loved it. I would Tivo "Live at The Bluebird" episodes that I picked up on the satellite and would learn the songs of some of my favorite country songwriters that I had been running into in Nashville, memorize them, then hit the subway platforms. It was really cool because you can play the same song over and over to a different crowd every five minutes and make some pretty good change doing it, not to mention how fast my chops progressed.
Construction work eventually started drying up in the north eastern states as well and I found myself bouncing between Nashville and Atlanta. I had recently met Marc-AlanBarnette (Can't Blame Nobody But Me) and one Saturday he called to invite me to a show he was performing that night at "Third & Lindsey" in
Nashville with the legendary hillbilly Shakespere, " Jimbeau Hinson ". At first I politely declined since I was 5 hours away in Atlanta. However later that day I was put in a position that I didn't want to be in and somehow the words "I can't, I'm driving to Nashville to see a show" came out of my mouth. Out of guilt I decided to turn the lie into the truth, got in the car and made the five hour haul just in time to see the first set.
I don't care where you are and who you know, Marc Alan Barnette is probably the best one voice, one guitar, acoustic show you'll ever see. Add Jimbeau and an adoring crowd and you've got yourself one hell of a party. Later that night when I had the opportunity to meet Jimbeau I guess I poor mouthed my way into a writing appointment and over the next year or so he was generous enough to co-write a few tunes to include: Slow Down, You Look So Good and Missing Paige.
Jimbeau has been a great friend and songwriting is just one of the unique characteristics he possesses that makes him such a prize for anyone to be able to call him friend and there are many who do.
In late 2003 I was back in North Georgia working for an old friend of mine who had started a new electrical company. One morning after pulling up to a DOT road block, a concrete pump truck hit me dead on at about 60 MPH. Witnesses say it resembled a billiard shot. The concrete truck stopped and my truck shot out like an eight ball. I got an ambulance ride and a permanent reminder in my back but by the grace of God I walked away counting my blessings.
Over the next year, I spent my time in a lot of pain trying to perform the physical duties go along with running a service truck until the IBEW doctors decided that the IBEW and myself would be better off with me taking a medical retirement.
In 2006 my five year self induced apprenticeship program was about over and I was starting to perform more since I now had little choice of careers to fall back on. I tinkered with putting a band together in Atlanta but found it way to hard to find musicians that I wanted to work with who weren't 2 hours in Atlanta traffic away, not to mention the lack of money being offered in the local market so I started falling back on my solo acoustic sets.
Now I realize that it takes all kinds to make the world go around and some folks will disagree but in my mind, when it comes to performing live to any sort of pre-recorded background track well, it just ain't right. For me it ranks up there with kissing my sister. One night while bumming around in Nashville, I happened to run across Dave Pomeroy playing at "The Basement". He was performing by himself, which in itself is a feat since he's a freakin' bass player. He was using a loop station to build these incredible grooves which he layered over and over and that got me to thinking. Before I knew it I had built version 1.0 of my loop station peddle board, which consisted of among other things, three Boss RC-20xl's , two of them series-ed together that I sang through and one for my guitar (I've since replaced the two RC-20xl's with the new RC-50 ). This enabled me to sing harmonies over multipul phrases without the use of computer generated processors while also playing a few of my pitiful lead fills over the verses that I've just recorded. It takes a lot of practice and coordination but I'm getting pretty comfortable with it and I never get tired of seeing the looks on the faces of folks who can't figure out who's singing with me.
Also in 2006 I also started work on "A Piece of My Soul" which I originally produced simply to have something to sell at acoustic shows. I had met my good friend Jay Vern through Jimbeau and recorded every thing at "Jays Place" in about five days that were scattered throughout that summer. With genius of Jay, and Danny Parks and the welcome support of Jimbeau the rest of the gang I knew I had something to be proud of, regardless of whether anyone ever heard it or not.
Later that year I decided to give MySpace a try. Posted some tunes and waited...and waited...and waited. Between September 2006 and March 2007 I had accumulated a total of 20 friends, most of which were nice looking young ladies who just happen to have web cams at the same porn sites.
After some thought about my target market, I crawled out of my shell and started introducing myself to some of you nice folks and before I knew it I was not only selling a few CD's and downloads but suddenly I was overwhelmed with the friendships and communication that comes with it which is pretty much why I decided to bombard you with all this verb-age.
I've spent the last six months or so producing video presentations and tutorials for an upcoming web marketing company that will launch later this year and I'm now in the process of moving back to Nashville on a full time basis as well as well as booking a Fall/Winter tour so I can get out and meet some of you guys.
This may be hard to believe if you've read this far but I can't find words to express how much I appreciate your help in promoting my music. Your friendship is sincerely cherished and I am humbled by every click. I look forward to sharing much more of it in the immediate future. To Be Continued...