Faith, Trust & Steps Revealing Themselves - (How I Recorded My First Song EVER)

ONE ACTION IN BLIND FAITH CAN CHANGE YOUR WHOLE LIFE

(Yellow Dog Studios Austin, TX)

One evening a friend suggests that I see a new movie starring Jeff Bridges called Crazy Heart. It's based loosely on the life of Billy Joe Shaver, a Texas country music artist whose songs were heartfelt and timeless. Well, Texas country is the only country music that seems to speak to me. It's the only country music that seems to say anything at all at the time. So with a bottle of wine snuck in under my jacket, I sit alone in a half-filled theater and watch the movie unfold.

The movie is somewhat inspirational to me, with some good music thrown in along the way. Days after I see the movie, I still find myself singing one song in particular. It is performed by the actors in the movie, but I want to know who wrote it.

After a little online investigation I ultimately find the songwriters of record. In my head I hear the song played differently than how it is performed in the movie. In my head I hear the song as a duet with a female counterpart, an old-school Patsy Cline sort of styling.

But where to start? I know nobody with that sound. I know very few artists at all.

But as the universe would have it, earlier in the month an engineer in the Texas country music scene came into my world via Facebook through two completely separate friendship circles. Here this engineer had been working with some of my favorite Red Dirt country artists at the time and had obtained a handful of Grammy nods along the way to boot.

The desire to record this song just won't leave me. The way that I am choosing to live my life now is to follow my heart and my gut, and not allow my head to get in the way. So I reach out to him with an idea. Even though I’ve never recorded before and have no real experience, I couldn't see why a busy guy like him wouldn't want to work with a nobody like me—because in my mind I’m not a nobody in music at all. I am a successful artist. We just aren't that far along on the timeline for anybody to be able to tell.

(Producer/Engineer, Adam Odor)

I reach out and tell him what I am thinking and what sound I am looking for. Who he choose to refer me to couldn't have been more dead-on in my eyes. She has a classic sort of styling with a beautiful tone. She is also seven months pregnant at the time. She really could have only been more perfect if she were cussing her husband out as she rolled out of a double-wide while throwing her luggage in the back of a rusted out pickup truck on the way to record this song. Hot damn it looks like I'm making a record. Holy hell, I don't have a dime to do it.

Sometimes you have to do what you have to do to follow your bliss. Most objects can be replaced much more easily than the opportunity at hand. For once a moment is gone, that same moment can never be replaced. I have this idea to put myself out into the world as an artist but no real way to pay for it. I've already sold everything that I can just to keep the wolves outside the door and survive. For months I've already been living out of the suitcase that's in the trunk of...
my car.

Two days later I have a check in hand and catch a ride to the bank to cash it.

I am lucky to have some very talented musical support in Las Vegas. They are the first guys that I ever shared a stage with, actually the first I ever played any music with at all. We had met while I still owned my restaurant. My last business venture.
The one that supplied the last coffin nail.

(Interior of my restaurant VOX)

These guys were working tour support with the rock band The Killers. While The Killers were in town recording, they frequented my establishment and played music on our stage with their own project. I think they loved playing at my place because I always treated artists pretty damned fine. I paid them, fed them really well, and watered them profusely, even when they weren't performing.

(Me with what became my first band. Pictured: Rob Whited, Steve Bonacci, Bobby Lee Parker)

One night after their show in the restaurant, just shortly after I had started playing guitar and singing at home regularly, I asked to check out one of their guitars. I started playing a Garth Brooks song that I had learned with my own sound and style. The drummer asked me if I had ever played before. I said no, I hadn't. He said that I had this Americana style and that we should do something together. It was the first time that anybody had ever said anything positive about my singing voice.

Two one-hour rehearsals and two weeks later, I was onstage leading a full set before a packed house. I had never experienced anything like it. I was nervous but there was a thrill in having all eyes on me, hanging on my every word. I felt truly alive.

(First time performing, full set, full house...yikes)

You never quite know how one seemingly insignificant moment may redirect your entire life. Now, almost a year later, I gather the first guys that I'd ever played music with and enlist their help on an actual recording project. They enlist another friend, a professional engineer in Vegas to help with the sound recording. Using a friend’s garage housing a makeshift recording studio, we are off and running.

My daughters, who are in town with me, are asleep on the couch.

(My daughters, obviously impressed and thrilled by the recording process)

The hours roll by on our project, and in a couple days’ time, boom—I have my first recording. At least my end of the recording process is complete. Now we just need to record the duetting part of the duet. We send the audio files down to Austin, Texas, and my female counterpart records her vocals at an actual recording studio. The music is mixed and, within weeks of the idea, I have my first song recorded.

The original idea is to release the song from Crazy Heart prior to the promotion for the movie going to DVD. One of the songs on the soundtrack is up for a Grammy and I think people will be searching online for this other song in particular. I need to get a video together fast and get it out into the world. The pressure is mounting.

Of course I want this all to happen yesterday. I see no reason why it's not possible. Quickly approaching dead broke again, I am wagering everything on this making an impact. Shifting my life in a new direction and paying my bills. I have my daughters waiting for me and that is what is keeping me intently focused.

However, the universe answers your calls for the ultimate and sometimes the road there doesn't correspond with your own timing or the day-to-day approach. I shoot a video that ends up being nothing at all like what I had in mind. It's my equivalent of "Achy Breaky Heart." But c’est la vie, I'm out of both time and money. This sucker has got to get out there now. Good luck.

The End Product Fallin & Flyin'

The best-laid plans of mice and men oft go awry. Truer words were never uttered. We spend so much of our lives planning in such detail. The truth is that we can never really anticipate all the details of the design used to complete the book of our life. It's beautifully amazing that what we dream can most absolutely show up. Those dreams rarely ever look like what we imagined, but oftentimes it is even better.

When we find ourselves stuck on an idea of how it "should" look, how exactly it is "supposed to” play out, that's when we find tension. That's where we find trouble. Grasping—whether ideas, the people in our lives, or the situations—you have to let go of it all and be present in each moment in order to receive. Receive what you're ultimately calling in.

******* excerpt from The Journey Home, author @carljohn Chapter 4 *******