The Day Elvis Died

There are many things that happened nationally that I remember because I remember where I was and what I was doing.

I know exactly where I was when the second plane hit the Twin Towers on 9/11/2001. I know where I was when Challenger exploded. I know where I was when I heard President Reagan had been shot. I know where I was when I learned John Lennon had been shot. I know where I was on November 9, 2016, when I learned that Hillary Clinton lost the election even though she won the popular vote.

And I know where I was when the radio announcer said, in solemn tones, "The King is dead."

We were driving through some flat area of Kansas or someplace like that, my parents, my brother, my grandmother, my two young uncles, and me, all piled into a bus-van type contraption that my father had found for a trip across the country.

My father had been flipping radio stations to find something to listen to, and that was what we heard, "The King is dead." We were all hushed while my father tried to find a station to figure out what was going on. At first, we were confused - what king? King of a country? Not the king of rock and roll, surely. He was only 42 years old.

After much fiddling with the radio dials - we were, after all, in the middle of nowhere in the Midwest - my father found another station.

"Elvis Presley is dead," the announcer said.

My father gasped, my mother shrugged, my grandmother said something to the effect of that being too bad.

My brother and two uncles went back to playing cards in the back of the bus-van, my grandmother returned to her nap, and my father drove, his hands tight on the steering wheel, not yelling at the boys for making noises they made as they messed around in the back.

I sat behind my father, and I watched him. I was only 13, but I knew this was important.

I have never asked Dad what that meant to him, to have someone he had idolized die and have no one to share it with when it happened. He didn't talk about it, didn't make much of it. He just kept driving.

My father was a big Elvis fan. My father had a band of his own and he sang many Elvis songs. He idealized himself as a "B" version of Elvis, or so I thought. My mother, who was riding shotgun in the bus-van, didn't seem to care one way or another, but I remember feeling the change in my father's mood even though he didn't say a word.

I remember his sadness, though he made sure no one saw him sad.

He wasn't alone, of course, we were all there in the bus-van. I knew he was feeling something, but we have never been a very lovey-dovey touchy-feely kind of family. I don't know if I was the only one who knew that this was a blow to my father. I've never talked about it with anyone, though my father asked me some time ago if I remembered where we were when we heard about Elvis's death. He was pleased that I remembered, right down to the cornfields along the side of the long stretch of highway.

Wise men say many things; others say very little. I always equate Elvis Presley with my father, and I always have that memory following me around, the memory of me, the young girl-woman in the seat behind her father, watching without comment while the man she once thought hung the moon absorbed devastating news.

Feel Like Making Love

This song, Feel Like Making Love, originally released in 1975 by Bad Company, is a song I had difficulty with.

For one thing, I couldn't sing it in the key it was originally recorded in, so I had to move it up from D to E.

For another, this song, if you listen to the released version, doesn't know whether it's a folk-rock song or a hard rock song. At the beginning, it sounds like folk rock, or soft rock (whatever you want to call it), but at the end, it's like the guy with the guitar just couldn't hold it back anymore so he rocks it on out.

However, VH1 once labeled this the 78th best hard rock song, so I guess it's a hard rock song, even if I have my doubts.

I struggled with this for a good month. I lack the vocals, and I lack the lead guitar skill. Finally, after some prompting from a friend, I decided to do it "my way" and hope it worked.

This uses my RC-3 Loop Station for the drums. I recorded a background rhythm first, then if you listen closely you can hear where I attempted to use the guitar to enhance the vocal parts where there should have been more people singing. I'm not sure that worked, but it doesn't sound awful. I did the lead guitar differently than the released song, and I also end the song earlier.

My voice has two ranges, the one that sounds a lot like I talk (which is what you hear in this video), and the one that sounds more alto-soprano and is higher pitched. What I can't do, likely because I never had vocal training, is switch from one voice to the other or hit the notes in between. I do know my limitations.

Anyway, here goes.

I Can See Clearly

This is my version of I Can See Clearly Now, by Johnny Nash.

I used my RC-3 Loop Station for the drums. I recorded a background rhythm track, and then went back in and did a little thump thump thing to try to give it more sound.

Not the best, I guess, but all I can do with one guitar.

Day After Day

This is my cover of Day After Day, written by Peter Hamm and performed by Badfinger in 1971. I have a soft spot for those light rock/pop ballads.

Anyway, the drums are from the Boss RC-3 Loop Station. Everything else is me playing on my Dean Vendetta electric guitar (and singing of course).

First, I played a strumming rhythm and recorded it. Then I played and sang the song. That means you're watching me add the lead and a bit of a bass line in there at times while this video is playing, along with some single string picking at various points in the song.

I must have practiced this 30 times or more before I was somewhat satisfied. There was more I thought about doing with the guitar lead, but I don't trust myself to record over a first recording on the Looper Station and I was afraid I'd lose what I already had. That's something I need to play with so I am more comfortable making those kinds of additions.

Anyway, here you go.

Angels We Have Heard on High

Sam the Snowman from Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer, assists me with a Christmas carol.

Christine McVie

Sleep well, Songbird. I cried when I learned you had passed away today. You made lovin' fun and kept me believin' in tomorrow. Thank you for the music.

RIP Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac.

Falling

This is my cover of Falling, by LeBlanc and Carr. It's not a song you hear much anymore, but it came to mind a few weeks ago so I looked it up.

I wish I could say that a performance like this is just a quick grab of the camera, placing it on video, and playing, but no.

First, the song was in a key I couldn't sing it in well (F). After much fiddling around, I ended up with the capo on the 5th fret of the guitar.

I hate playing with a capo anyway, but one that high up on the guitar makes the guitar sound too high for my taste. I tried transposing it back so I could play it in a lower register, but it's in A# now, and frankly the Fmaj7 chord position sounds so much better on the guitar, even with the capo in the 5th fret, than an A#maj7 chord position, that I left it alone.

After figuring that out, I had to find the tempo on the RC-3 Loop Station, then play it through several times to make sure I could play it and sing it. Then I taped a strumming round on the Loop Station. Later, I taped another guitar round on the Loop station, except I was finger picking it instead of strumming.

Finally, I went back and taped in the little lead runs. I had initially planned to play those while I was singing, but I've hurt my left hand, so I went with taping the lead instead.

And then, feeling like I'd had about enough of this song, I hit the video and recorded it.

This took about 10 days over all to accomplish, what with life stuff and my hand swelling up.

Anyway, here is my cover of this 1977 love song.

Still a Little Country

This is one of the first songs I learned to play on the guitar, I think. I've known for as long as I can remember. I am playing a Dean Vendetta electric guitar. The background rhythm was recorded on a Boss RC-3 Looper station using a Yamaha acoustic guitar. The looper station supplies the drums.

The song is Help Me Make It Through the Night, by Kris Kristofferson.

 

Break It To Me Gently

This is a cover of Break It to Me Gently, a song made famous before I was born by Brenda Lee, and later by Juice Newton when I was a teenager.

I am playing a Dean Vendetta electric guitar and using a Boss RC-3 Loop Station. I recorded first the rhythm, then some of the lead, and am adding rhythm and lead when I recorded this with my iPhone. The drums come from the Loop Station.

This is actually harder than it looks. :-)

TroubleMaker

I wrote another song. This one is called TroubleMaker.

I'm playing an Epiphone Les Paul Special I and using an RC-3 Loop Station for the drums. I recorded a rhythm track first, then a lead track over that, and then played rhythm again and sang.

This is not a song that really suits my voice, but I honestly think of the things I've written, this is probably the most "commercial." 

Here are the words:

Troublemaker

By Anita Firebaugh

We’ve got similar demons, we sing similar songs

But you did things right while I did them wrong.

Did an angel grab you, send you on your way

While the devil told me there’d be hell to pay?

I’m a troublemaker. I’m a troublemaker.

I’m a troublemaker, risk taker, fool maker, heart breaker, troublemaker.

You smile like the sunshine, your voice is like spring

I laugh at the darkness and my words only sting.

You smell only flowers and you see only good

While I’m the bad girl in the neighborhood.

I’m a troublemaker. I’m a troublemaker.

I’m a troublemaker, risk taker, fool maker, heart breaker, troublemaker.

What kind of spell did you place on me to make me think I could fly with no wings?

What kind of fool do you think I am? Do you really think that I might give a damn?

I’m a troublemaker. I’m a troublemaker.

I’m a troublemaker, risk taker, fool maker, heart breaker, troublemaker.

I can sense your desire, I can see in your eyes

That you thought you had me when you made me cry.

But I know you’ve got secrets, I know if I stay

I’ll make sure they all come out one day.

I’m a troublemaker. I’m a troublemaker.

I’m a troublemaker, risk taker, fool maker, heart breaker, troublemaker.

I'm a troublemaker.

Memphis Dance

This is a guitar instrumental song that I wrote. The strumming is performed on an Epiphone Les Paul Special I electric guitar using an RC-3 loop station, which also supplies the drumbeat.

I am playing the lead on a Yamaha APXTZ, which is an electric travel guitar.

I was really just using this for practice but after recording it, I realized it was rather pretty. 

 

(There's a jump in the recording, I think something happened in the upload, but if you're just listening and not watching it's not noticeable. I have very bad Internet service and it took over two hours to upload this little video, so I am always surprised if they upload without issue.)

Yes, I Also Play the Harmonica

Not only do I play guitar, I also (sort of) play the harmonica.

This is a short video of me playing harmonica to a background of guitar music. The guitar is me strumming rhythm and playing a line of lead on a Boss RC-3 loop station.

The harmonica is a $3 Homer instrument I picked up several years ago at Cracker Barrel. It is in the key of C. The chords I am playing on the guitar are C, F, Dm, and G.

This is actually a real song that I simply went musically all over the place with. Youtube didn't flag it for copyright claims, so the real song must be hidden well enough. Can you guess it?

A Jam for My Friend

My friend, B., died on December 3. The family chose not to have a service. Instead, in the obituary, we were all advised to spend an hour having fun in my friend's name.

I had a sinus infection and was sad, so I wasn't exactly into fun at the time. Instead, I picked up my guitar and settled into a bluesy honkey-tonk jazzy something or another that went on and on and on without an end. This video ultimately was 20 minutes long; I cut it back to 6 minutes.

The rhythm guitar and drum loop was created using a Boss RC-3 loop station. I played the background rhythm first with the drums from the loop station. It's a simple jam in E7, A, and B. The lead guitar runs are simply me playing whatever I was feeling at the time.

The D string went out of tune a little bit during the time I was playing, and I can hear it in this part, which is unfortunate because I thought this section had some of the best lead runs in it. Oh well. What's a "live" performance without some error, right?

I hope B. enjoyed it.

Lost In Love

This is a cover of the song Lost in Love by Air Supply. I go off-key a little bit in one place and there's a guitar error near the end, but what the hey. I've never claimed to be a professional at this. My asthma doesn't help; I could tell it was bothering me when I made the video.

Somebody out there needs to see an overweight woman who can't sing that well strumming a guitar this morning, right? I mean, if I can put myself out there, everyone can.

Anyway, this uses a RC-3 Loop Station and has two guitar recordings on it and it is supplying the drum beat. One of the guitars was an electric Epiphone Les Paul Special and the other was an amplified acoustic Yamaha FG-150, which I am playing as I sing, so essentially there are three guitars on this song, all of which I played, including the error.

Believe

I've been writing a song again.

This one came as an inspiration from a request from a friend and former teacher. She wanted a happy song.

For me, this is about as happy as it gets, I suppose.

The ending is abrupt because I messed up and it was the 7th take and I was tired so I just stopped and said that was enough. I could have posted the end where I messed up and let everyone see me curse, but that's the great thing about editing software. That type of thing can be deleted!

I'm playing an acoustic Yamaha FG-150 and using a Boss RC-3 Loop Station for the drums.

The words are below the song.

So, here's Believe.

Believe

My teacher she said write a happy song

I said I’m pretty sure I’ll get that wrong

But I’ll try. . . . . I can try.

She said I don’t want to hear about your fears

No more crying, no more tears, and no sighs.

. . . . No goodbyes.

So there’s an elephant dancing to my beat

And a zebra running down my street and a rainbow –

. . . . Yeah a rainbow

And there’s a violet growing in the summer rain

A beautiful girl with love to gain and I know

. . . . Oh yes I know.

That days go like the seasons.

And a happy song needs a reason

So I’ll go sit on the bleachers

And write a song for my teacher.

Cause I know, yes I know – that she believes in me.

There’s a kitty cat knocking on my back door

A ladybug crawling on the kitchen floor

And she’ll fly – O yes she’ll fly.

My lover tries to tickle me behind my knee

I laugh aloud because I am pleased and I know why

Yes I know why

That a day may be a dreamland

And a happy song will help you understand

That you will do everything you can

And I know, yes I know, that I believe in me.

And a day is like a season

And a happy song needs no reason.

And I know, yes I know, that I believe in me.

No One's Child

This is a song I have been working on for a while. The chorus came to me first, and the rest of it eventually fell into place.

This is a ballad (I guess). I am using an electrified acoustic guitar along with a Boss loop station. A loop station (also called a looper) allows me to add stuff to the song like lead guitar playing while strumming. You will see it toward the end.

I only got the looper this weekend so I'm still learning how to use it, and I think I go flat on the first line because I'm still sniffling a bit with my sinuses, but I needed to get this recorded before I forgot the tune.

So here is No One's Child.

Here are the words to the song:

No One’s Child

By Anita Firebaugh

My momma she was a broken tree upon a rocky shore.

My daddy was a drunken sea, a storm when I was born.

Between the waves and the killing tree

There was never hope for me.

There was never hope for me.

And I am no one’s child. I run eager, free, and wild.

And I drift along like deadwood in a stream.

I was born to bleed

To always have this ache and need.

With nightmares in my sleep, I do not dream.

With nightmares in my sleep I do not dream.

My sister was the silver moon, she fed me fruit and grain

My brother was a thunder boom, he brought me wind and rain.

Between the thunder and the moon

I grew up too soon.

Yes I grew up too soon.

And I am no one’s child. I run eager, free, and wild

And I drift along like deadwood in a stream.

I was born to bleed, To always have this ache and need.

With nightmares in my sleep, I do not dream.

With nightmares in my sleep, I do not dream.

(Guitar solo)

Whispered: No one’s child.  I am no one’s child.  No one’s child. Etc.

Melissa Etheridge Live in Concert

Saturday was Melissa Etheridge's 60th birthday. She celebrated by having a concert at a hotel in LA. She had 200 people in a 1800-person venue, and sold tickets to the show for the rest of us to watch online.

So I watched. The concert also was a celebration of the release of her new single, One Way Out. The concert was called "One Way Out . . . of the Garage."

It was a spirited show. She was happy to be back in front of people and happy to have someone bring her guitars instead of having to do things on her own. I suspect being a rich rock and roller had spoiled her, as she had helpers doing all the things she did for over a year in her garage.

I enjoyed her early music and have listened to some of her later albums, but honestly after Breakdown I stopped listening so much. She released a compilation of hits and I thought she was probably done then, but she continues to make music.

I snipped this image while she played her concert.

Watching her off and on during the pandemic, while she played nearly everyday (for free for several months, then switching over to her Etheridgetv.com channel where there was a fee, so I didn't see much after that), I learned that she is quite the business person, too. She has another business, Etheridge Botanicals, which sells cannabis-related items. She also set up a foundation to study drug abuse after her son died of an overdose nearly a year ago.

All in all, it made for a late Saturday night for this not-yet-60-year-old, who finds a 10 p.m. bedtime more suited to her lifestyle these days.

It was good to see someone close to my age doing what she loved, and doing it well. There is hope for us older folks yet.

Her band consisted of 3 members. A drummer,
a bass player, and a keyboardist/guitar player.
Melissa Etheridge did most of the guitar work.

She changed guitars for nearly every song.

Unnamed Song

 

This is a song I wrote. I've been working on the guitar part for a bit; the words came this past week after January 6.

I am not happy with it, but I thought it might be interesting to somebody to see the work in progress. I suspect I will have to put it aside awhile and rethink it, when I am not so stressed. I do not consider this to be finished, or even good.

Here are the words because my singing is not the best in this recording. The chords for the words are on top; the guitar part is much more complicated than two chords, that is just to keep me on track. "Guitar Bridge" means that little bit of guitar part I play in between the verses.

Unnamed Song - by Anita Firebaugh

Am

You tell me that you need war

D

I don't know what you want it for.

Am

You tell me that you see red

D

All I see are thousands dead.

Guitar Bridge

Am

You crossed a line that you can't see

D

You're taking away my right to breathe

Am

You believe you have the might

D

I know that it don't make right.

Guitar Bridge

Am

We all know there's a great divide

D

How many tears must the victims cry?

Am

You have all the things you need

D

And now you're stealing liberty

Guitar Bridge

Am                  G

And there are no words . . .  (repeat)

Am

To stop this now

Disco and Today: There is a Relationship

The other night we watched the HBO documentary, The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart. The documentary was very good and informative.

I had no idea about the early recording history of The Bee Gees. I didn't realize they were famous long before Saturday Night Fever, especially overseas in England and Australia.

As a 14-year-old from hicksville, and one who played in a "Top 40" band at that, I loved disco. I still love disco. If I'm in a bad mood, I tell Alexa to play disco and I perk right up. It is hard to listen to disco and stay hurt, sad, or upset. It's such an upbeat, moving sort or music, the kind that makes your feet simply want to move around on their own.

When Saturday Night Fever came out, I did not see the movie. But I heard the songs. How could you not? Disco was all over the radio. The Bee Gees may have topped the charts, but they were followed up by songs from Donna Summer, ABBA, even Barbara Streisand.

And then disco went out of style, and the Top 40 songs of the 1980s had a different feel. Not as danceable, but ok.

I never knew why, because I never thought about it and because I was still a kid. Fads come and go.

What the documentary pointed out to me was the reason disco came and went.

Disco began underground, as a mixture of music from venues popular with African Americans, Hispanic and Latino Americans, Italian Americans, and gay culture in Philadelphia and New York City during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Some scholars say disco was a reaction to the 1960s counterculture.

This little ol' farm girl didn't know anything about that. I just knew it wasn't country and western, I could dance to it, and I could play it on the guitar. Well, some of it, anyway.

Then came the backlash. Actually, the backlash came with a mouth with a megaphone. Some fellow at radio station in Chicago hated disco. He bashed it and railed against it. He had the means to be in touch with probably millions of listeners in the Chicago area and beyond. Finally, on Thursday, July 12, 1979, at Comiskey Park in Chicago, Illinois, the mouth teamed up with a MLB team for a stunt.

The stunt was to blow up disco records in between a double-header game. People could enter the ballfield for 98 cents and a record to blow up.

What caught my attention during the HBO documentary was a commenter who said he was working at the ballfield that night. The records that 50,000 people brought in (apparently mostly young white males), were not copies of Saturday Night Fever, although I'm sure there were some. No, the records, the gentleman said, were R&B music, soul singers - black singers, Latino singers, i.e., anyone not white.

In other words, the mouth with the megaphone dialed into the latent and apparently inbred fear that lives in that most cowardly aspect of humanity, the fragile white (mostly male) ego. They came out not to blow up disco, but out of fear that the black people, the Latinos, the women, the homosexuals - anyone not them, were gaining traction.

They could not have this. So they blew up their records.

Rolling Stone critic Dave Marsh described this event as "your most paranoid fantasy about where the ethnic cleansing of the rock radio could ultimately lead". Marsh deemed the event an expression of bigotry, writing in a year-end 1979 feature that "white males, eighteen to thirty-four are the most likely to see disco as the product of homosexuals, blacks, and Latins, and therefore they're the most likely to respond to appeals to wipe out such threats to their security. It goes almost without saying that such appeals are racist and sexist, but broadcasting has never been an especially civil-libertarian medium."

Nile Rodgers, producer and guitarist for the disco-era band Chic, likened the event to Nazi book burning, according to Wikipedia. (Here's a good recap of the event, if someone wants further reading.)

This reminded me so much of the present day that it left me breathless. This is what the current Twit on Twitter has tapped into, this fragile white ego. The election of the soon-to-be-former president was a homophobic, bigoted, racist reaction to the election of Barack Obama. How dare a black man sit in the White House! And he looked good in a tan suit, too.

So for forty years, this racist, misogynistic, bigoted group of white fragility has simmered and boiled and no one in charge has addressed it. It's simply sat there, an underground music all its own, one that people with decency did not hear or understand if they did.

Then finally, another mouth with a megaphone tapped into this seething underground mash of decay, realizing it was there and ready to overflow, because he was a part of it.

And that's at least a little of the reason of why we are where are today - racists marching the streets of Charlottesville and Washington D.C., bigots in all areas of government, and a (leaving) administration that would sooner destroy democracy than see another black person (or a woman) in the seat of power.

It was an eye-opening few sentences for me, and certainly something I've given a lot of thought to since we watched the documentary.

Long live Democracy, and disco music, too.

The Benefit Concert

Last night, I watched and listened live to Melissa Etheridge's online benefit concert.

The cost of the concert went toward the Etheridge Foundation, a nonprofit she established to research opioid addiction following the death of her son, Beckett, earlier in the year, due to the drugs.

The concert was supposed to be two hours, from 6 p.m. until 8 p.m.

She stopped playing about 8:50 p.m. Almost three hours.

At 59, she was rocking it out like she was 27 years old. She is an amazing guitarist and I admire her for continuing her career, and doing life like she wants to do it.

I also am in love with her Gibson Les Paul Guitar. I believe that is a 1982 Custom. She's a beauty.

She played many of her hits, including Bring Me Some Water, If I Only Wanted To, Come To My Window, You Can Sleep While I Drive, and Like the Way I Do, which she ends her shows with.

Her dog Biscuit made an appearance about halfway through the show, curling up near her feet while she played. I think the little pup plopped down on a cord and she had to work around him.

She is one of the most underrated guitar players in the world, I think. She needs to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

As Melissa says, speak true, choose only love, it's a choice.