Thanks in advance to everyone who wants to be added as one of my (space) friends! Sometimes it's difficult thanking everyone and making a recipricol comment on their page, but I definitely thank you in advance! Thanks also for all of your comments and your photos! Make sure to join the blog and add your two cents worth! I'm sure your news is much better than mine!Now let me tell you about myself. If you want to know, I'll tell you. I have no secrets. Well, if I did, I certainly wouldn't tell you! If your bored already or have ADD, just skip this part! I was born in April of 1958 to two very talented people.... musicians who eventually grew apart because of their immense differences. My father loved to drink and eventually became an alcoholic and my mother never smoked or drank in her entire life. For that matter, I don't know if she ever really cared for anyone who smoked or drank but who knows. I grew up in the chaos of a house full of musicians in Hollywood, Florida. Everyone in my family is a very talented person....whatever their talents may be. My father passed away while I was in Germany in 1994. To this day, I miss him terribly. My father was the kind of person who would rather take a piece of newspaper to pick up a spider and let it out the door rather than to step on it and kill it. But he was a complicated man. When he had been drinking heavily, he was like the devil himself. Many musicians or entertainers fall into the substance abuse categories and unfortunately, my father fell into that one for alcohol.As a teenager, I was in several "home" bands; enjoyed music class in school and then in my early thirties, I was in a southern rock group called "Mile High". We did quite a few charity events especially for March of Dimes, which is still one of my favorite charities. We once helped raise over $50,000 (not alot of money but we always tried to help as much as possible through our music) for March of Dimes of which we were honored by the city of Simi Valley. I believe that was in 1993 but I could be wrong. Time seems to go by so quicky!We once performed in front of Delaney and that was quite an honor! We had such a fun time. Took loads of photos! We Hung out with him a bit and his "entourage". The song "Crazy" is one of my favorites because I love to listen to old Patsy Cline songs and my mother, when young, always sang sorrowful type of twangy "country" songs. Kevin, the leader of our band "Mile High" (who wrote the majority of our original songs) always wanted to hear me sing Patsy Cline songs. He always told me "sing that Patsy Cline song, Crazy".....but, Her songs are not that easy to master.Personally, I am a HUGE fan of Linda Ronstadt. I grew up listening to her songs and my mother's voice reminded me of Linda Ronstadt's voice. One day I was in my room when I lived at home and I heard this terrific song. I thought it was a tape of my mom singing. When I went out into the living room, I discovered it was a song on the radio by Linda Ronstadt. I was hooked ever since. I love the songs that are sang by Linda Ronstadt because so many of her songs, I find I can connect with. Some even tell the story of my life! Patsy Cline's music was always the most difficult for me, even though I enjoyed singing them. Her songs are quite dated, but her music will live long after I am gone. When I finally decided to sing one of her songs... "Crazy"..... it actually took nearly 20 "takes" for me to consider it "completed". I am somewhat of a perfectionist and if I was going to sing her song, I had to do it as best I could. Anything less was not acceptable. When singing a song that is a favorite of mine and its been mastered by someone I admire, its really important that I try to emotionally feel as close to the artist as possible when singing what I consider "their" song. I know that's weird and I've heard some say "well take a song and make it your own". Yes. I do that too. If I am going to sing someone's song, the majority of the time, I only listen to the music and not the words or how someone else sings it. I play the music over and over and over and then I sing the song the way that I personally feel it. I don't want to know how someone else has sang the song. This is how I make songs, my own.The Mile High band was formed by Kevin Navis. I still remember the first day I ever saw him. He and his friends were playing music in a huge park and I could hear them from a mile away. When I stood listening to him, I saw a vision of the future. I knew Kevin could take his music and go as far as he was willing to go with it. I introduced myself to him and we became instant friends. It was as if I had always known him. Kevin wrote many of our original songs. But Kevin's downside was that he was not willing to expand himself or allow himself to see the big picture for himself. He was also very stubborn which caused alot of conflicts within the band itself. Let's say..many creative differences. As much as I loved Kevin as a dear friend, his stubborness eventually wore me out and I decided to walk away. He was upset about it but so was I. I didn't want to walk away from him or the other band members, but we came to a complete standstill and I had to move forward with my life. I still miss him and the others to this day. Who knows if they ever think about me. It would be cool to reunited with everyone, but who knows. I do know that Kevin and I were perfect for each other vocally and we became very close through our music. I just wish that Kevin had believed in himself as much as I had believed in him. I also wished, at that time, that his wife had believed in his music and his future with music as much as I had believed. Perhaps his musical career would have gone much further than anyone could have ever imagined. Maybe things have changed for him since, but at the time, I felt his wife held his musical aspirations and abilities back because she really didn't see the big picture or believe in him as much as I did. No!!! I was NOT in love with him. NO! I didn't have a thing for him! NO! We were NOT a "item". We were good friends and we were good for each other musically. I was very much single at the time I was with the Mile High band and I was never short of dates or friends. I had no desire to get married or hooked up, at that time. My two kids kept me together and they were everything to me. Kevin and I wrote the song "A little bit Crazy", together. We actually fought for 24 hours solid about the song and how it would take shape. Kevin and I actually holed up in the studio for 24 hours solid. It was not at all unusual for Kevin and myself to be inside of his home studio working on music. Music was our passion and our first love. Something we DID have in common. We actually laughed when I said it reminded me of "Donnie and Marie Osmond"'s song..a little bit country and a little bit rock and roll! I wanted it to have a little country sound and he wanted it to have his rock sound to it and we came to a middle ground of which I am very proud of how the song came out. It's very catchy! I think our music is actually very timeless. Even years later, I love all the music that was originally written by the band members (including myself) of the Mile High band because the songs are "timeless" and so terrific. The studio versions are much better sounding but our live performances actually captured our essence of how close we were as not only a band, but as people. We always laughed and had a good time even if we screwed up! Sometimes we'd catch little things that others didn't and we'd laugh at it onstage in front of people. I think we brought to people a sense of togetherness and I remember one time we performed for a charity event and this one guy was sitting in the front row in a wheel chair. He was crying and I though maybe we did the song wrong. After the show, he hugged us all and said that we brought tears to his eyes because our music had "touched" him. I hugged him and cried with him! We have many terrific original songs that are quite long that I wish you could hear but "my space" doesn't allow much room for putting a show case on or longer songs!We have many tapes of our live version songs which captures the closeness of our group and how much we laughed and enjoyed what we did as a group to include how much we really liked each other....... plus studio versions that show how "tight" we were as a group. We practiced for hours on end and we took our music seriously. We were always rehearsing and yes, our families got aggravated but it made us better as a group and a band. My time spent with the Mile High band was a memorable one and one that is greatly missed even to this day.I guess we all have to move forward with our lives and even if I had a vision and I had faith the band could reach ultimate heights, it didn't mean that the others saw or believed in the same things. I saw great things for us as a band and as a group...but the others would not allow themselves to have the same faith and vision, so I decided to walk away. I wish Kevin had not taken it so hard and had remained a friend because I loved him greatly as a friend. It tore me apart that he could not still be my friend but let me part as a band member. Maybe leaving a band is like breaking up. HOwever, I didn't want to "break up". My love for Kevin and the other band members, on my part, went much further than my love for the "band". Perhaps they didn't see it that way. Oh well. Say-la-vee. What will be, will be.My musical influences are of course..my number one girl, Linda Ronstadt but also Patsy Cline, Bonnie Raitt, Emmy Lou Harris, Sheryl Crowe, Paul McCartney, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Melissa Ethridge and so many...many... others that it would be impossible for me to remember them all. I love all music styles with the exception that I am not really a "head banging, screaming and yelling" type of music fan and I absolutely dislike rap of any kind. My favorite songs are soulful, sorrowful and songs of broken love or broken hearts. I enjoy ballads or songs that take you into a story or another place. Songs that have a meaning or that you can definitely relate to. I would love to someday meet Linda Ronstadt. My ultimate dream in life would be to actually meet Linda..spend a day with her and sing with her. I've lived my entire life on her music and I think I own every song she's put on the market. Linda is very gifted and I love the fact she enjoys a variety of music herself. One of my favorites is a ballad she does with Ann Savoy. I even loved Ann's Cajun style music and loved her "French" songs as well. Both my husband and I have stayed in Paris and we absolutely fell in love with the city with the exception of a French woman hitting me with an umbrella I had opened (to see if it was large enough for me to purchase) inside of a store! LOL I found that absolutely hilarious as she cussed me out in french. That was a great day!Both of my parents had a band when they were younger and they performed live on radio back in their hayday as well having performed at the Grand Ole Opry. They were very much into blue grass and the twangier type of country music. Many a night was listening to Merle Haggard, Tammy Wynette, George Jones and so on. My parents lived and breathed country music and many a party was thrown at our home with so many musicians in and out of our door when I was a kid. I can't tell you how much I really hated it at that time because I was young, the parties were loud and noisy. It always seemed like we kids were going around from party to party with our parents and from one place to another for my parents to play their music. I completely enjoyed it as a teenager because I met some incredible, good looking musicians!I am still working on the tributes to both of my parents. My father, deceased in 1994, was a very good musician and could play nearly every instrument placed into his hands. He was not a trained musician but rather, he was self taught. My father taught both me and my brother how to play the guitar and banjo before we were even ten years old! It seemed like we were born with a guitar in our hands or a microphone! Music was a very real part of our family.I can relate so well to many of the songs that Linda Ronstadt has performed over the years. Some of her songs may as well be telling my story. That's why I love her music so much. Mainly, my roots have ancestors coming from Alabama. My great-great grandfather was a confederate soldier attached to the 44th infantry and fought in the war at Gettysburg. My sister, who resides in Pa. , located him by a fluke visit to Gettysburg in 2006 with her husband. Two of my great-grandmothers were Cherokee indians. I have lived in Germany for a few years with my husband as both of us were stationed there while serving in the military. Music is still my passion and always will be. As a young adult, I enjoyed the enterainment field and participated in four movies as an extra. "Sinatra" (which I had to dye my hair jet black in order to get a part because the movie), "Money Men" (which later was renamed Boiling Point) with Wesley Snipes, "Hoffa" with Jack Nicholson and Danny Devito and "Falling Down" with Michael Douglas. My younger son was always interested in being an actor/comedian and he won many drama awards through-out school and was the runner up for a part in the movie "Sand Lot". He beat out thousands of kids and actually made it to the Director's office/chair as their first choice until someone found a fat kid with alot of freckles in New York who actually hasn't done much with his career since that movie. I know my son would have not only done a much better job with the part but would have gone on to do more films...but, I am sure other actors/actresses know full well how the movie industry is. It's a tough world!! But my son did get to personally meet Bette Midler and she rubbed his red hair for good luck. I was jealous because his teacher had connections to Bette Midler and took him to meet her and I didn't get to go! I love Bette Midler! She's a very funny gal. My oldest son and I were both in a television movie called "The Golden years" which was an MTV special about "teen suicide", back in the middle 80s. I need to go through some of my old photos to put on here as we took alot of photos while shooting the movie. It was quite an experience. Also, both my younger son, his friend and I provided face, arm and leg plaster casts for the movie "The Stand". Many of our plaster casts were used but at the time we had them made on their studio lot, I was not aware what the movie was about and I became very upset over seeing them all twisted and disfigured..some were charred. I was not happy with that but I had not read the book prior to signing up for the body casts. It was also a scary ordeal having plaster of paris placed on my entire face with straws up my nostrils! What a weird sensation! I'll never forget beginning to freak out as the plaster began to harden and they had to keep talking to me to keep me calm because the mind plays tricks on you! I had grand thoughts that I was being smothered by these men who made horror casts and such! I wish now that I had asked for one of my plaster casts to be signed because it would be a piece of terrific memorabilia for me and my son now. Instead, at the time...we took the money!
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