It’s 2:30 am after a gig in Rock Island, Ill. There is nothing on tv in the hotel room except for a still about the weather, which has been rainy and lousy all day. The gig didn’t go that well. They didn’t dig us. They ate they drank but not our audience. I’m maybe half depressed. It had been coming on for awhile. I’m thinking that this band is a dead end.
I turn up the sound on the tv. I’ts a loop of “Girltalk” by Kenny Burrell. At the time I didn’t know who the player was or the title of the song. I only knew it was the most beautiful, sweet soothing thing I’d ever heard played on a guitar. And it played over and over again.
Next day I’m driving back in the band van. It’s a long haul home. All I’ve got is an AM radio. I flip it on and I get Karen Carpenter singing about Rainy Days and Mondays. That voice. I totally believed what she sang. She had that cutting honesty that says this is real. I listened and it too got in my head.
I got a new amp. I can make the Girltalk sound come out. I’ve sang some notes that were real and honest. I think I’ll keep on this for awhile. It only took 38 years to get here.