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I grew up in the sixties. It made an indelible imprint on my already strange sensitivities. I was a preacher’s kid whose spirit was ignited by the songs blaring from the radio, Nancy Drew mysteries, and going to the movies.
I got my first guitar in ‘65. A year later no one could get me out of my room. I was shut up in there learning all the songs from The Monkees’ first album. My piano lessons suffered greatly by this, but I later managed to teach myself to play pop piano by imitating the styles of Joni Mitchell, John Lennon and Neil Young.
By the time I was sixteen I had become a favorite brew around Columbus, Ohio’s coffee house circuit, playing my guitar and singing for packed rooms. At the famed downtown “Cracked Cup Coffee House” there was a piano. I would occasionally break my set to go over and play some of my original compositions, or Joni songs like “For Free” and “Willy.”
Following high school I pursued a Bachelor of Music in Theory & Composition at Ohio State University. One quarter shy of graduating I opted for life on the road as a rock-n-roll musician. The following six years I toured as a multi-keyboardist and vocalist, mainly with Dayton’s legendary Blue Max rock band, and a Nashville-based show-rock group called Little Rock. After six years of gigging in 26 states and Canada, I loaded my music gear and everything I owned into my van, and drove myself and my dreams to California with only two hundred dollars in my back pocket.
It was February, 1983. Against my grandmother’s insistence and my better judgment, I took the shorter northern route through Flagstaff, where subsequently I experienced the worst snowstorm of my road career. I crested the highest hill just as it dropped anchor. A snow blanket plopped onto my windshield. My wipers moaned under the weight of it. My loaded-down van slid near the edge of steep overhangs again and again, while bullying 18-wheelers sped past me going 25 miles-per-hour. I gripped the steering wheel trying to stop my own death.
The longest two hours of my life eventually came to an end, and I descended to the desert. It stretched out ahead of me dry and boundless. I wavered in that first warm breath of Arizona sunshine. I stopped at the first gas station to buy a pack of smokes (I had quit the year before). My cold skinny piano fingers could barely uncurl enough to hold the cigarette as I headed for the California coast.
I landed first in Santa Barbara, sharing a house with a former music school buddy before moving to L.A. My first California band was an all-girl band. Our first rehearsal was held at this guy’s house up in the hills. He had offered up his spacious home to us, lending his support to the arts.
Halfway through setup, the Santa Barbara S.W.A.T. team armed with automatic weapons crashed through the patio sliding-glass doors screaming, “GET DOWN!” My Rhodes piano was still on its back on the floor. I was on my knees screwing in the legs. My rattled senses sent me diving behind 73 keys, hammers and tines encased in plastic.
All the female band members were corralled into the kitchen and handcuffed to patio chairs. After two hours of questioning, the police surmised we were innocent, realizing we had no knowledge of the $150,000 worth of hallucinogenic mushrooms at all stages of growth in the man’s garage. Suffice it to say, that was our first and last rehearsal.
In Los Angeles I worked diligently to try to gain a foothold in the industry -- gigging, showcasing, studio work, shopping tapes, etc. I married the drummer in my first L.A. band, and gave birth to my daughter, Terra, in ’87. While still in the throes of early motherhood, I won a Dodger Blue singing contest, and sang the Star Spangled Banner at Dodger Stadium for one of the home games. My marriage ended in ’89, and I was a single mother for the next five years -- supporting myself and my daughter, and my music career, with administrative temp work. I continued to write and perform original songs, with performances at “March for the Animals” in Washington, D.C., Jerry Brown presidential campaign rallies, songwriter showcase clubs, and even Whole Life Expos. I wrote and recorded the official theme song for Boeing’s Space Station (Promise of Tomorrow), and was the featured guest performer on a FOX Television pilot.
I was supposed to be interviewed on that FOX pilot by Malibu’s famed psychic, but after I had finished performing my new song for a 3-camera shoot, she shut down the project, refusing to do my follow-up interview because her “energy had been thrown off balance by my performance.” Hmmm. To be honest, it was a wound for me, and a setback in my career. Something just got lost that day. And I didn't even realize it until years later, when I went treasure hunting for lost dreams. But that's another story.
The song that I had performed that day I wrote in 1991, following a dream that succeeded about fifteen visits to a Northridge movie house to watch “Dances With Wolves.” (This is not a fish story.) The movie found its home in the deepest part of my heart, and it was during one ot the afternoon matinees that I smuggled a stopwatch and metronome into the theatre, to time Kevin Costner’s dance around the fire. After measuring the pulse and length of the 70-second scene, I wrote the instrumental prelude that would later introduce my new song, “White Buffalo.”
This was a new kind of songwriting for me. It marked a gradual shift into story writing, though I would never let go of the music. I went on to complete a 2-year Certificate in Film Scoring at UCLA while beginning my first screenplay based on White Buffalo’s lyric narrative. But I shelved the whole project because I needed time to familiarize myself with the craft of screenwriting, and to get a couple of completed scripts under my belt.
I wrote and directed my first short film in 2002, "A Man, Like Me,” based on an unsung African American hero during the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
Photographs taken by my friend, Dale Carley
