Saturday, May 30, 2009

another blast from the past

I received a phone call today that was totally unexpected. Steve, the keyboard player from a band I played in over 30 years ago, called me out of the blue. I had recently been in touch with one of the guitar players from the band after a mutual friend died. Apparently Steve heard about that and asked for my contact information. Steve lives here in Memphis!!! He is a studio musician and wanted to know if I still played the guitar and sang AND if I would like to join him and some mutual friends in a jam session.

Wow. I didn't know what to say! I haven't played my guitar in a while and I don't even know if I have the time or the energy to do something like that. But I must confess, it took me back to those days of learning new songs, then rearranging them, which was a specialty of Steve's. I remember performing a super-fast version of Carlos Santana's "Evil Ways" with me singing a harmony to the entire vocal, then morphing into a slow song that was written by Doug, the guitar player, with lyrics by me. We were performing in a local talent show and we won. But the hours we spent crafting that two song performance, trying different ways of putting them together, stand out to me as such a memory of the creative process. Five guys and me, in a basement, smoking and arguing and playing music. It was a heady time. It was fun and magical. It all came back to me today.

I finally agreed to come down and just hang out a bit. What can it hurt?

3 comments:

Laurie said...

Even if you don't play guitar, you can sing! Wow! 30 years! So many changes in that time!

Bill Crummett aka Prancingdawg said...

Is this our Steve from Misenheimer? Steve, em, Bowles or something sounds like it? What a gas that would be!

Catherine Jones McClarin said...

Nope - you're thinking of Steve Boles, actor. This was a Steve I knew before I even met you. I was in high school and singing in a rock band. Steve was a MUCH OLDER guy - 22 or 23 - you know, really old. LOL