My Songs and Memories

I’ve been using CD’s with the songs I have written in the past in live presentations with Senior groups recently. . Most of these songs were taped by a musical genius named Greg Brayton. I wrote them and we recorded them from 1997 to 2001. I also use a few songs for children I’d recorded earlier.  Recently I was reading the chronological list of the my recorded songs and trying to recall where I was when I wrote the songs or where I was when we first introduced them to an audience.  It turned into a real adventure for me.

First Alaska popped into my head. I wrote Boo Coo Caribou in Prudhoe Bay up near the Arctic Circle.  Latino Lover popped into my head in the airport at Mexico City. Greg introduced our song Garage Sailin’ at the Opera House in Clearwater, Michigan. There was Have a Good Life I wrote in Panama City, Florida and And It Rained and it Rained at Ocean Beach on the Atlantic Ocean in North Carolina.  One of my very first songs was written on a troop ship bringing us back from Korea. It was titled Goodbye Yokahama Hello Frisco and I sang it on deck with our group called The Happiness Boys in 1953 ( I sang quietly because I never could carry a tune.) The troops had us do encores at each show. I have tapes of over 60 songs to choose from still All America is So Beautiful is my favorite and I guess I researched that  song for many years visiting all of our 50 States but it came together in June 1999 as I traveled between Battle Creek, Michigan and Hillsborough, North Carolina courting Jean. Last week, right here in Hillsborough I played my song titled Don’t Wait Too Long To Make Your Dreams Come True and every toe in that room was tappin’ to that blues rhythm and every voice was chantin’ back to me “Don’t wait too long.” And yes, all was right with the world and all of the worries I had carried into that room, for a while at least, vanished from my mind.

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