It's a Marvelous Night

It's a Marvelous Night

  • 流派:Pop 流行
  • 语种:英语
  • 发行时间:2012-07-10
  • 类型:录音室专辑

简介

THE NIGHT IS CLOUDY. BUT THERE IS STILL A LIGHT. "When I find myself in times of trouble..." I could feel the tears starting to build when I was practicing the guitar solo for Let It Be. Alone in my study, going at it again and again with the original song, getting closer to a workable variation. And now the emotions were rising again, here on the stage as our band was moving farther into the song, part of a musical tribute to a departing minister. Concentrate, I said to myself as I chorded along with the familiar melody. "And in my hour of darkness..." I look over at Darrell, pulling the audience along, as they deal with their emotions of a respected leader leaving them to be a hospital chaplain, and as they remember their own attachments to this song. Darrell, with his opera training, is really knocking it out of the park, but I have to move to the mic as Dory and I get ready to do the harmony. I watch Dory and we hit it together. It's soothing to feel it go this well. How did I get to this place, with these bandmates? I'm past 60. Tracy on the bass is older than me, Brad on piano is looking at retirement in a few more years, Keith on drums is the baby at 48 and Darrell and Dory are somewhere around 50. And yet there are times when we rip into a rock or country or jazz song like we're 20 years old. I had never been in a band. I had performed solo with voice and guitar about 35 times in Victoria in the 70's. I moved to Toronto and the guitar was barely touched for 20 years, then back here in Lethbridge the minister asked me to play in the contemporary service. Then he asked me again. Then he asked me again. I stumbled along, learning eight songs a week. The others began to form a tighter unit with me and then Darrell was asked to put together a band for a food bank benefit. After all that practicing for that one gig we decided to keep going. Sometimes a wondrous, special feeling would come out of a song; partly because we listened to each other, partly because our complimenting talents allowed the music to grow and shine. Five of the six of us sing so we went for good melody lines and put our interpretations into the songs. We made mistakes, we practiced on our own, we rehearsed as a group, we got better. We could feel momentum growing. The solo is coming up. The keyboard leads the descending riff, it's repeated again...and here I go, up and down, keeping it simple with some flange and echo, one note at a time, pushing the guitar melody up and down, up, up...and then with my head nodding in time I strike hard on the last three notes. I nail it. I nail it loud and pure in front of 200 people and the band is right with me. I hold in the tears as I slide into the A minor of the chorus. I see Tracy wrapped up in his bass lines, a veteran of the machine shop and country music bands. I see Brad at the keyboard, pacing the tempo, a man who can mix formal music training with honky tonk improv. I hear Keith on the drums, hitting them perfectly. Darrell's voice fills up the melody. Dory on harmony, who did her first public singing with us, is a TV personality with a Governor-General's Award for Community Service. She covers Carole King and Carly Simon and does her versions of male singers with her own character, and now her clear, clean sound is fitting easily on top of the lyrics. There are times when it feels like the six of us are locked in and totally concentrating, so deep inside the engine of a great song that our individuality is lost in it. "And when the night is cloudy..." Before we thought up this band called Moon Dancer there were cloudy times for us. One has had a heart attack. Three have diabetes problems, and three have had a divorce. One was almost murdered by a deranged stepfather; another was pursued by criminals. And I am from the cloudiest, darkest night. My only child, my son Josh, died from cancer in January 2000. The title of my play of his last six months, Walking Upright Through Fire, described what it is like. And for the years after his death is felt like my heart was 100 years old. "There is still a light that shines on me..." And the light is music. It makes us practice, spend money on equipment, bring in songs to try out, put up with each other. The last chorus rolls by and now, here is the final riff: piano, bass, guitar and drums hitting it simply and tightly, note by note, slowing down, slowing down, and then one carefully timed final chord. It works. The audience snaps into loud and long applause. I repress tears and shuffle my music for the next song. I never thought I'd feel this good again. Let it be.

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