First order of business: Happy Thanksgiving to my
Canadian brothers and sisters!
My 59th birthday was last Wednesday,
or as I now tell myself, I am ushering in my 60th year. In last week’s
report, I quoted from a song I wrote out in Banff, entitled The Wind Begins to Blow, and it is about
the swift passage of time. It was written on a blustery cold day in July, about ten years ago, and I was feeling particularly pensive that day. Even in the summer, the
mountain weather in Banff can be quite hostile, and I felt in some inexplicable
way that change was in the air. Of course, change is always in the air, it’s
just that sometimes I feel it more than other times. Anyhow, it was about to
snow, and as I watched a Clarke’s Nutcracker clinging tenaciously to a tree
branch outside my window, the gloominess of the moment narrated the song in my
head. My friend Gil from Florida chided me the other day,
suggesting I should write more happy songs. I suppose he has a point … if I
were Barry freakin’ Manilow, or if I gave a flying Walenda about commercial
appeal, which I never have. Anyhow, sorry Gil, but this is who I am; I’ve
always been this way, and you can’t teach a decomposing misanthrope new tricks.
Last Monday and Tuesday I had my last recording sessions
with Juan Barbosa before my scheduled shoulder surgery at the end of the month.
In those two back-to-back sessions and I laid down bed tracks for six songs. Lately I feel as if my time is passing faster,
and I feel some sense of dire urgency/ In a month or so I’ll usher in my 51st
year/ And I’m nowhere near where I thought I would be. Juan and I work well
together, and I think he gets my songs. My ambition has never been perfection,
or even to impress anyone with my performance. I am a writer, and know my
limitations as a performing artist. Still, Juan has proved a wizard at covering
up the mistakes effectively. I heard a famous musician interviewed the other
day - I can’t remember who it was - and he said there are certain albums his
band did that he simply cannot listen to, because he hears all the mistakes. Ultimately
my goal is to present the songs better than I have done so far, without the distracting,
glaring mistakes apparent in my previous self-recordings. To a greater or
lesser extent, I think Juan has succeeded in doing this. He sings a few of these
songs and really breathes new life into them with his bluesy soul. Without
getting too full of myself ( as if it isn’t too late) it is exciting to hear
some of these songs, many which were just sketches when I wrote and recorded them,
come to life as legitimate musical performances. I feel blessed to have found
this like-minded musician to take my songs to the next level. After my surgery
at the end of the month, and while my shoulder heals, I want to move on to new
songs, things that I shelved fifteen year ago and which need fresh eyes and
ears. I want to get my good friend Bobby Cameron involved too. Bobby's a gifted producer, and a killer guitarist. There are at least twenty or thirty unfinished
songs, some just penned, that I intend to revisit this winter. Perhaps with the
help of some of the talented local singer/songwriters up here one or two of them
will be heard by a wider audience. Who knows? I have new goals now.
One of the songs we recorded last week was a humorous novelty
song I wrote many years ago called Swamp
Queen. Shauna doesn’t like that song, because it is a bit rude and she
feels it is beneath me. Ever my publicist and biggest supporter, she worries I
will not be taken seriously if I put out a novelty song. I cannot believe this
woman has been married to me for twenty years and still feels that there is ANYTHING “beneath” me, but there you
have it. Anyhow, I recorded Swamp Queen
as a mock rock anthem and I think in Juan’s hands we can knock this one out of
the park. It has YouTube written all over it! Juan actually lives on a swampy
little pond, and if we can get the right video recorded, this one could be a
lot of fun. So Gil, if you’re reading this, I can be light-hearted, on occasion.
The Wind Begins to Blow is anything
but.
Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2014 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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