Chasing our dreams

Against my better judgment I answered a post on Craigslist last week from a female singer.  To cut a long story short, it very quickly became obvious that she was a flake, a time waster; she'd been in Nashville for three years, (she'd moved from Louisiana to pursue her singing career, which was a good sign) but she had had no professional photographs taken, no identity as an artist, and only one demo song (she sounded 'exactly' like Jewel, even CJ commented on that) and then lied.  What's the saying, be careful what you wish for?  If someone shows an interest you should be knocking down their door - you only get out of something what you put in.

You are more than likely a dreamer if you're in entertainment as a performer, be it a musician, singer, actor, and have aspirations, and that's how it should be, but you have to have drive and hunger and be realistic and professional.  Don't play at it, don't waste people's time, or your own, keep putting people in awkward positions, people who feel they can't say no to you, and keep going on about it for years without doing it, and I'm speaking from my own experience, no-one else's.

There's another saying, "You've made your bed, now lie in it".  We are solely responsible for decisions and choices we have made, and make.  Life is a journey, a road, and we reach crossroads, perhaps one way clearly signed, but for the other road the signpost has been stolen, so destination unknown.  Most of us take the safe road, where lives are mapped out and directions are clear.  Sometimes we ignore warning signs, "Don't do that!" and then we pay the consequences, and/or accept them.

When we're young our whole lives stretch out in front of us.  I look at my children and see their dreams and aspirations and see them strive to make them come true, which they are, but that's because they have actually done something about them and not just talked about them, sat around waiting for someone to hand them their dream on a silver platter.  Taylor has found his niche now with work and is so good at it, a natural.  Courtney took a chance,  moving four thousand miles by herself to take up an unpaid internship, which has now turned into a full time, well paid position with a small team who are probably the most successful PR firm in Nashville at the moment, working with the top artists.  Bailey in the meantime is still finding his direction, finding himself!  He is only fourteen though, an exciting time in life, I hope he chooses his path wisely, takes chances, believes in himself.

It's the people with a vision, backed by that drive, who succeed; people with self belief, and of course talent, in whatever profession they choose.  Talent will out in the end, always.

Classic albums and mid life crisis

I remember the first time someone said to me, "I'm going away for the weekend, I need to find myself."  I flippantly remarked, "Why, when did you go missing?"  She took this question seriously though and answered, "Sometime in the last ten years."

As we get older do we lose sight of who we are or is it that we change as we grow older, go through experiences and come out someone totally different?  Women I think change more than men, they must do, having children must totally change how you look at yourself, your body; men will never, ever understand this.  Girls grow up, mature, much quicker than boys - they deal with puberty much better, they have to I guess, it's as simple as that.  I'm not sure boys could actually deal with the things teenage girls have to go through.

When we reach a certain age though we start to examine who we are, who we've become.  Have we lost our own identity?  You're someone's father/mother now, or someone's husband/wife - what happened to you?!?

So, many people try to recapture their youth.  Yes, it is the mid-life crisis!  Mainly it is men who go through it.  I wonder if losing their mother has anything to do with having this crisis?  Men deny having had a mid-life crisis, I haven't, but many do - they buy the Harley (don't they Tim? lol), or have a ridiculous African Tribal fertility tattoo of a snake put right across their (very) lower stomach!  It's not just men though; I remember a woman leaving her husband of fifteen years, cutting off her long brown hair into a short white, peroxide crew cut, and running off to Italy with another man on his Harley - only for it to break down two days in and she had to ring her husband to pick her up - which I think he refused to do! Good on him.

I've said before that I honestly don't feel any different today then I did when I was fifteen.  Now, I'm not sure this is a good thing though.  I have as much energy, drive and ambition as I did then, and I tell my body that it's not really tired after a late night or one too many bottles of wine (eh CJ?), it just thinks it is, (or that it should be after all these years).

There's a song of mine on The Rodeo e.p.  (available July 4) called 'Do You Remember Us', which has the lines "Real life got in the way, and we got lost along the way".  We can and do get lost and sometimes we try to reconnect with ourselves.

I've done this myself recently by rediscovering certain albums that inspired me as a kid to become a songwriter; classic albums - Bolan, Bowie, Dylan, Springsteen, Young, Zeppelin, The Stones and The Kinks.  It struck me that the days of such classic works, classic albums, have long been over.  Now it's all mainly singles and downloading favourite tracks.

Creating an album was and is a painstaking, tooth pulling, experience; which track should open the album or close it?  Every track had to compliment the one before or after, or be completely different to change the mood totally.

What was the last truly classic album?  Where are the Pet Sounds, or Sgt. Peppers, or even Nevermind or Definitely Maybe.   Has there been an album in the last ten years, five years, that will inspire songwriters and bands of tomorrow?  There have been many accomplished albums for sure, Bruno Mars' album comes to mind, a wonderful talent, and there have been some incredible tracks of course, but albums.........?

The revival of vinyl has been continuing but as a music fan I have to admit, I don't care what I listen to my music on - I have a windup gramophone for my 78's (yes kids), a 60's record player for the singles, a record deck, a cassette player, CD's of course and my iPod, but for me it's all about the music but there was something about an album cover, reading the notes and lyrics but you can still download all of that now.

I remember my friend Jim in Santa Barbara; he was an Elton fanatic and must have had at least fifteen versions of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road - yellow vinyl, Japanese version and so on.  The internet has changed everything of course, but I think it can be for the better, certainly for the artist.

There's no A & R guy telling you your track needs more strings or a electric guitar, or needs to be 10 beats faster.  Creative control is now totally in the artist's own hands.  Through the internet, from a bedroom in say Cardiff, or Hamburg, or Oslo, or Mount Juliet artist's can reach the world with their music, with their films, with their art and photography and I think it's very exciting and will hopefully lead the way to a new generation of talent that don't need television talent shows to make it, as long as they have the belief, the drive and the hunger to succeed.  In many ways I think this is what is lacking, that drive and hunger, many want it all too easily, by appearing on the Voice or whatever, and don;t get me wrong, some of the singers on that are very good indeed, and we've always had talent shows but nowadays, with pubs for example in the UK closing at the rate of twelve a week, there are fewer and fewer places to play, especially with original music, so hopefully again the internet holds the key to the answer and we'll have some new classic albums.

Television, books and reading

We live in a world of gadgets, many of which we take for granted, but which one is the best invention, the one you couldn't do without now?

I would hazard a guess that many will say their cell/mobile.  Security wise it is invaluable - if you breakdown or get lost you can call or text.  It can though make you constantly available and lead to many arguments - "I was trying to call you, you never answer your phone!"

I talk to Tom Cruise's daughter on my phone and she tells me if I need to wear a coat or who I have to meet; she's very efficient and still young!

The wheel seems such a simple idea; electricity; computers and laptops; planes still amaze me, all that weight with no strings to keep them up; and then you have the television.

Someone once told me that knowledge is power; I agree.  I am a fan of television, and hate the highbrow, snobby attitude of some people who say they never watch television, (ask them about a character on a soap and chances are they know them!).

Like many 'gadgets', television has moved on so fast.  I remember as a very young kid, and I repeat, very young kid, I asked a couple of American air force guys my father had brought home for dinner one night if they had colour television in America.  This was in Cardiff and my Dad had just bought a colour television.  They kindly smiled at me.

CHEVY CHASE

I love it in National Lampoon's European Vacation (big Chevy Chase fan) when they arrive at the hotel in London and the son tells his parents that the television is broken, he can only get three channels!

Yesterday we had America's 250 channel package installed - and will still complain about there being nothing on to watch!  The day before Bailey had told me he had watched Top Gear on his iPad whilst in the bath!  I am obviously a bad influence.  We do have a television in every room, except the bathroom - so far, you can even buy them or even one for outdoors!  It is all getting too much.

You can get apps for CNN, Sky, BBC, local Nashville television stations and more for your tablets and smartphones - watch last night's match on the train and a film in a park - your very own drive in theatre, well, sort of.

Television can be hugely educational of course, National Geographic, the History channel and of course Elmo and Sesame Street has helped millions of children to read.

I've realised though that, much as I love doing so, watching television at night before you sleep does not help me to get a good night's sleep - and at my age I need my beauty sleep more than ever!  it's all to do with Michael Stipe, or rather REM.  Your eyes get tired but not necessarily your brain.

As a kid I used to read every night, without fail, (I had over 200 hundred Enid Blyton books by the time I was ten) and I have realised that I have stopped doing so and this is going to change.

Curling up with a good book is unbeatable, even if it is on a Kindle or your iPad.  Reading is a great magic carpet ride into someone's imagination and a good writer will take into their world, one that they have created, or maybe a biography lets you in to the see the real person behind their public mask.

Audio books have also increased in popularity, although I prefer to read a book myself rather than someone else put their understanding of say a character or a scene.

It just so happens that I can recommend the perfect book for this time of year - Spring; A Trilogy, three stories of betrayal, love, revenge, all written by yours truly and available now from Amazon!

  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007FB274E

A blatant plug I know but I have to pay for all these televisions and other gadgets somehow!

Musicals, John Mellencamp and Stephen King

Over the past weekend Mary Poppins was on, yes once again.  It’s an easy film to watch but once again the whole premise of musicals struck me –there you are in the middle of a scene and suddenly a character starts to sing, backed by a full orchestra and backing singers – all in a children’s bedroom!

We accept these scenes; West Side Story, The Sound of Music, all the classic Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, the list goes on.  Fame is one musical that works for me, the setting being ideal for a musical.  Irene Cara is simply stunning in the film, for me one of the best musical performances in a film – she won an Oscar.

Is Footloose classed as a musical?  Interesting.  It has transferred fairly successfully to the stage, as has numerous other films with music – Mamma Mia (which I’m sorry but I so dislike), Billy Elliot and recently the Dave Stewart produced Ghost, and for some reason, U2’s Spiderman show, which has been plagued with many problems.

The cost of staging a musical is high, very high.  For someone like myself who has bemoaned the cost of staging one of my own ‘two-hander’ plays, (plays with only two characters), to the point of cancelling the play in the end because it simply would not be anywhere near financially viable, the cost of producing and staging a musical is beyond imagination.

Possibly the two main theatre producers in the UK, and indeed the world, are Andrew Lloyd Webber and Cameron Mackintosh, who coincidentally used to lived quite close to each other, and us when we lived on the Hampshire/Berkshire border.

From our bedroom you could see Watership Down, which Webber owns, or owned at that time.  I’ve never met Webber but have met Cameron a couple of times, mainly in the Carpenter Arms, a pub he used to own I think in HIghclere, by the castle they use for Downton Abbey.  It was there I met the late producer Simon Channing Williams, who was so encouraging about my writing.  Simon produced Mike Leigh’s brilliant films and was also the producer for the Richard E Grant vehicle, When Jack met Sarah, a romcom.

Another Jack met Diane, as in the great John Mellencamp song Jack and Diane.  Mellencamp is not that well known in the UK, but most people will know this song.  In the States he has somewhat perhaps been overshadowed by Bruce Springsteen.

Mellencamp started out as Johnny Cougar, signed to Rod Stewart’s label Riva.  He had a couple of hits but then started to use his real name, Mellencamp.  As he matured as a writer and artist he has in many ways become the voice of the Heartland, rural America.  His songs are so ‘American’ they are probably the reason he has not enjoyed much recognition out of the States.

A few years ago he starred in and directed a surprisingly strong movie, Falling from Grace, written by Larry McMurty – check it out if you get the chance.   He is also a driving force with Willie Nelson, Neil Young and Dave Matthews behind Farm Aid.

His latest venture though interests me greatly; a musical he has written with novelist Stephen King!  An odd pairing at first glance, but then it really makes sense.

STEPHEN KING, JOHN MELLENCAMP AND T BONE BURNETT

Of course better known for his horror books – Carrie, the Shining, Misery, Pet Cemetery, Salem’s Lot etc., my favourite King books or stories are the human drama ones – Stand By Me being the outstanding one.

King also collaborated with Michael Jackson on the short film Ghosts.

The Ghost Brothers of Darkland County is the name of the musical they have created together.  It promises to be a must see. 

It is based on a true story; Mellencamp bought a cabin in his home state of Indiana only to find that fifty years ago by the cabin two brothers had fought over a local girl, and one of the brothers had killed the other.

He loved the story and wanting to write a ghost story, well why not go to the best ghost writer in the business, which is what he did.  Both Mellencamp and King are Tennessee Williams’ fans, hence a couple of nods in the script to the great writer.

It has taken many years to come together, twelve in fact and the musical opens tonight, April 11, for previews at the Alliance Theater in Atlanta.  The show features a stripped down, four piece band, all playing roots instruments, and the music director is T Bone Burnett.

I hope it is a huge success for them and transfers to film shortly.

Here is a link to Jack and Diane - http://youtu.be/h04CH9YZcpI

and I had to add this, a link to Irene Cara, singing Out Here on my Own, from Fame - http://youtu.be/i4mkRwkQRoQ

Cheaters, cops and humans

Last night I capped a day of watching a load of films on television – Footloose, Big, On the Buses, the Likely Lads (which I loved, great dialogue), See Spot Run (I know?!?) - with my son Bailey, by watching an episode of the American series, Cheaters.

I've watched it for years, always preferred original host Tommy Grand.  Over the years have seen hundreds of couples torn apart by betrayal.  I've also seen the host stabbed by a 'cheater' - was that staged though?

The first ‘fly on the wall’ series I seem to remember was ‘Cops’, which still runs today.  It was very hard-hitting, all the more so because it was obviously real, and certainly, unlike many ‘reality’ shows today like Made In Essex, did not have scenes set up for entertainment.

Cheaters is a bit like a guilty pleasure; I am by nature very sceptical and over the years have believed some scenes are indeed set up but in many cases the pain and anguish of a betrayed lover is all too evident and real, and that sometimes makes me feel as if I’m intruding on a private moment, which of course I am, and of course all the audience.  The cheated partner though has chosen to go on international television though and this does make one question their motives.  It’s the same of the Springer show and the awful Jeremy Kyle, (who has recently started a similar show in the States, trying to break that market).

Why on earth would any woman admit in front of millions of people that she doesn’t know who the father of her child is?  Unbelievably many women do not know who the father of their child is, or perhaps do and yet have kept it a secret, for various reasons - but where is their self respect?

There was last week a case in Conwy in North Wales of a woman who had led a man to believe that he was the father of her daughter.  He had contributed thousands of pounds to the daughter’s upbringing.  The daughter wasn’t his; he wasn’t her father.   How devastating must that be, to find out after many years that the child you have raised, have believed to be your child, isn’t.  In most cases I believe it doesn’t change the relationship between the child and ‘father’ but the knowledge of the betrayal, the lies that the mother must have told over the years, must be something that obviously shatters all trust.

The mother in the case in North Wales has quite rightly been sent to prison for fraud and deception.  What about the daughter though?  Did she believe the man to be her father?  How does she feel now?  Some people are so selfish that they simply don’t consider the consequences of the actions.  We always tell our kids – “Do the crime, do the time.”  Take the punishment, deal with the fallout, don’t try and blame other people or make excuses.

In Cheaters the excuses for infidelity are sometimes laughable, if they weren’t so hurtful to the person’s partner.  People never fail to amaze me; to be honest I guess that I hope they never do.  In creating characters for my writing I delve deeply into human characteristics, and their shortcomings, and it is fascinating.

We are all just human after all.

This song highlights just that - Eric Carmen – Boats against the Current.  

http://youtu.be/o_3J-x7YIzM





"and it seems we're all just human after all, and we're both taking a fall"

Jon Johanson

Jon Johanson

Sinatra, concept albums and Watertown

Think of concept albums and which album springs to mind first?  Sgt. Peppers? The Who's Tommy?  Stan Tracey's musical interpretation of Dylan Thomas' Under Milk Wood?  Pet Sounds? S.F. Sorrow by the Pretty Things?  The Kinks?

There are of course many, the idea became popular in the late sixties into the seventies but the concept album was actually born in the fifties.  Woody Guthrie and Johnny Cash being two artists who released albums that had a central theme.  It was though Frank Sinatra who took the concept to another level.  His classic Capitol albums of the fifties included In the Wee Small Hours and Sinatra Sings Only for the Lonely.  In 1968 he recorded A Man Alone, an album of songs by Rod McKuen but it was a year later in 1969 that Sinatra recorded what is a long forgotten gem, Watertown.

Written by the Four Seasons' Bob Gaudio and songwriter Jake Holmes it follows the story of a middle aged man, whose wife has left him.  The man lives in Watertown, New York.

It was a hugely ambitious album for an artist such as Sinatra but not only has it stood the test of time, like the finest wine, it has improved with age.

Sinatra of course owned Reprise, home to many fine artists - Jimi Hendrix, Dean Martin, Neil Young and many many more, many signed after Sinatra sold the label, but the label retained Sinatra's idea for founding the label in that every artist would have full creative freedom, and complete ownership of their work, including publishing! Imagine that today!

This premise was due to the relationship Sinatra had had with Capitol and he vowed no-one would 'own' him again.  Legend has it he stood on the corner of Hollywood and Vine with Martin, looking at the Capitol Tower and said, "Let's go and build one of those of our own".

Watertown as an album was apparently recorded mainly over two days in July 1969 and is a major departure in style and format for Sinatra, and yet, is it?  Listen to Elizabeth, the link below; unmistakably Sinatra.

Elizabeth - http://youtu.be/fLddFvtA6Do

Rumour has it Sinatra sent a demo of the song to Elizabeth Taylor with whom he had had an affair.

I have loved this album for so many years and it more than deserves being rediscovered today.

Watertown also happens to be one of my favourite small towns, about ten miles from our property in Tennessee.

It is so typical of an American small town - the square, quirky shops and stores, a cafe, with a train line running right through it and of course a city hall.

 

WATERTOWN

(In Telegraph Road I use Watertown and Hartsville as the fictitious town Waterville, home of the Waterville Post).