Well, what can I say? Things have changed quite a bit from a couple of years ago. I didn't really anticipate the changes, and I didn't choose this path, but those are the cards I've been dealt and you can't win unless you play, so I'm playing! Give me all your twos? Oops, different game. Like a good friend of mine used to say, "When life gives you lemons, make chicken salad." Or something like that. Anyway, I've got lots of positive things to talk about.
First of all, thanks to everyone who has supported and defended me over the past few years. Your kind words and encouragement have meant a lot. I take my responsibilities to our fans very seriously, and it's nice to know that the great majority of people who submitted posts to that other web site know that I would never walk out on them like that. The thing I'll miss the most from not playing with those guys anymore is not seeing and performing for all the wonderful People I was fortunate enough to meet at our shows over the years. It's always the People that make the shows happen, and it's the energy and the joy that the People give you when you perform that makes being a musician the best job possible. If things work out the way I expect and plan, hopefully we'll meet again, and soon.
Shortly after Black Monday, I was talking to my friend Johnny Neel, who is one hell of a keyboard player, and he was completely upbeat. "Now you can do your own music," is what he told me. He's absolutely right! I've been working on tons of tunes, and now that I'm not limited by trying to write in someone else's style and having to keep it to 2-3 chords, the ideas are really starting to flow. Lots of different styles. Blues, rock, country, funk, etc., etc. Lots of different instrumentation too. There are sax ideas of course, but also a lot of guitar riffs, in both regular tuning and slide. I'm getting keyboard riffs, vocal riffs, and even a mandolin idea or 2. I'll keep developing this.
I'm working with a couple of friends learning how to use some of the great software that's available these days for recording right to hard disk. I can see possibly taking some of those ideas and doing a recording project in the near future. I've always wanted to do an album of me' acoustic material with the London Philharmonic. Just kidding. I do have some other ideas about potentially interesting musical projects. I'll let you know more as they develop.
I've been playing with some of the local talent. One of the more interesting combos has been playing with a real Delaware Blues Legend, Gary Cogdell. Gary was a Blues Star in the big city ( Philadelphia) way back when I was still in high school. He showed some other reputed slide player how the bad blues slide was properly done. I sat in with Gary a little while back, and the music felt so good and the crowd response was so enthusiastic, that we've decided to work it up a bit and take it public. I'll post the dates on the schedule page once they're finalized. I also have a couple of other gigs coming up with The Witch Doctors too & I will post those as well.
By far the strangest turn of events is that I'm also back in college. Yeah baa-by! Taking a couple of courses and hangin' at the student center again, like a real hoodlum. It's going pretty well. The hardest part, so far, is sucking in my gut for so long whenever I'm around all these youngsters. I can finish a degree by next year, and then maybe I'll go to law school.
Finally, I've submitted a rough outline, and I'm in the middle of negotiations with a small publisher for my first great novel. It's titled "Through the Eye of the Hurricane: Twenty Three Years of Rockin' Down the Blue Highway" by Hank "Hurricane" Carter. I've got a ton of stuff to write about. Funny stories, anecdotes, behind the scenes info, lots of personal stories involving some of the biggest names in music during the 80's and 90's. There are events and happenings, such as Live Aid and the 50-50 tour. There are untold stories from Destroyers history, thrills, chills, love, hate, legends, scalawags, saints, and knuckleheads. It'll all be in there. I've been compiling and committing memories to paper for the last 6 months. I'll be culling the best stories over the next several months and will hopefully end up with a book that can be enjoyed by both the hard core Destroyers fan and the reader interested in tales from the frontlines of American pop cultural history. Stay tuned to the web site for these and other breaking stories...
