4 – New York, after Military
After I got out of the Service I lived at home, was dating a girl named Sue and was writing a lot of music. I made several attempts at playing the local bar scenes, getting mixed reviews, but mostly positive. But, I passed on an offer to join a band and I messed-up a trip to Boston to get my songs heard. I wrote about that last one in my Blogspot. You can read about it more at this link (Year-I-Leaped-and-Missed).
I wrote a lot of songs about my relationships: both before and after the breakups. Sounds like Taylor Swift’s music. But, I assure you they weren’t that good and were targeted at a different audience. LOL.
It was during this period that I picked-up playing the 12-string guitar: both acoustic and electric. I got a better amp and lugged them around .. even down to Bob’s place.
5 – Early Minnesota
My early MN years are split between the apartment near work and the house on Alice Ct. At the apartment, I used the speaker cab of my amp system as a writing table (laying it face down on the floor). But, at the house I managed to buy a small table for working on. I also bought a small electric piano to help with song development. I tried making multi-take records on tape, dubbing in the piano. But, soon gave up on that.
I tested the waters on sending out tapes to music producers. No go. The kindest replies I got back were that they were not looking for my style of music. Otherwise, I mostly just never heard back.
I also tried out for a music competition. But, I didn’t have the gear for making a good impression and the songs I chose to perform were some of my less developed (read as “newly written”) and did not impress the judges.
Now, the Early Minnesota period is really a long one because it includes my early married years. I didn’t do much writing or performing during that latter period. So, there is not much to mention. But, I continued to play guitar and piano, even composing songs on the piano: something I hadn’t done much of before this.