Q: How old were you when you became hooked on music, and what sounds did you gravitate to?
A: It’s funny; I just connected with some old grade-school friends, and we were talking about the explosion of music in the early ’60s when we were in our early teens. It was everywhere you turned and all different kinds of music. There was my mom listening to Sinatra, and my sister and her Motown greats that she played over and over. Then there was The Beatles and The Stones, Led Zeppelin, and ZZ Top. So many different types of music and we all played in garage bands trying to find a sound and too ourselves. Music brought people together then and it does now. It’s an enduring kind of love.
Q: When did you decide to become a singer/songwriter?
A: I have always tinkered around with writing, poems or short stories, and I was trying to get my daughter involved in music and arranged for her to have guitar lessons. I thought maybe I should do it with her and then I got bit by the bug. I started playing more and more and then I found the nerve to play to an audience at a show we put on at “Writers In The Round,” the place where I was taking lessons. I knew at that moment I wanted to do this. I then enrolled in the Berklee School Of Music’s online program and haven’t looked back since
Q: How did you form the band?
A: That’s an interesting story. I had put together some songs and recorded an EP with Will Robertson out of Atlanta. Will took my songs written on an acoustic guitar and added a full band, drums, keys, bass, horns and banjo, and I was amazed how different it sounded and thought how am I going to do this? Ding, ding, ding the lights went off and I thought, I’ll form a band and so at 57-years-old I started to go hear different bands playing around Houston. I first met our old drummer, John Best, and he introduced me to Aaron Koerner, our horn player and our guitarist Michael Viteri. He and I had known each other when he filled in for my teacher and gave me a few lessons like “Stairway To Heaven,” which he is still trying to teach me to play. Little by little we put together a band and over the course of the next year and a half we lost some people and met with others through gigs or a friend of a friend, and here we are. Our keyboard player, Rod Borbon, is the boyfriend of a classmate of mine from Berklee; our bass player Rally Terrill came to our aide during a recording schedule conflict, and she later introduced me to Sean Heyl, our drummer and Jimmy Smith, our pedal steel player. He and I met at Avant Garden, a local venue we frequently play. We are excited to hit the road this year and record our second CD.
Q: How would you describe the Americana scene in Texas?
A: It’s always growing. I think most people would automatically think Austin and with good reason, lots of great music has come out of Austin, but the Houston scene has really exploded with all kinds of great music steeped in the traditions of Americana music with influences of country, blues, rock, jazz, soul, gypsy, and throw in a little hip-hop and twang and bam, there it is – Americana at its best pulling from all of the different genres. It’s a special sound coming out of Houston and the rest of Texas.
Q: Would you describe your lyrics as autobiographical? Which ones are the most personal to you and why?
A: I think that there is always something autobiographical to a song, some more than others. I try to write from the perspective of the “what if this happened to someone else” and how best to make the themes and the lyrics more universal. For example, “Sticks and Stones” and “The Ritz,” two of my favorite songs on the CD, are somewhat autobiographical with a fair dose of poetic license, but reach other people who have themselves in those same situations. We have all faced harsh words and criticism and contemplated giving up and I hope they speak to a wider audience. The more personal ones, the ones that get to me the most, like “Wires,” “Never Want To Come Down” and “Please Don’t Go,” are born out of relationships, mostly failed ones, but they are part of what inspires me and from each there is always something positive to take away, but maybe not so much in the song. Ha! Ha!
Q: What musicians have had the greatest impact on you and why?
A: I would have say that the bands that inspired me as a teen still inspire me today. The Rolling Stones continue to fan the flames. The sound they have, the mix of what makes that distinctive sound is born out of the same ingredients though cooked a little differently that makes what I believe to be Americana. I would be remiss not to say that my band has had a profound impact on the way I write. I can take an idea, a really rough idea, or lyrics to them and before you know it we got ourselves a new song.
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