My Music – Life Iz Colorful

I Hear Music

As a young person, I watched and listened to wonderful musical television shows such as The Ed Sullivan Show, Hit Parade, Name that Tune, Sing Along with Mitch, Lawrence Welk, Hee Haw, Hullabaloo, and American Band Stand.

At any moment in time you could hear the walls of our family home vibrating from the music and big voices of Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitgerald, Peggy Lee, Rosemary Clooney, Sarah Vaugh and many other greats. Beethoven, Bach and Mozart were also regular guests at our home. It’s no wonder that I associate music with events and experiences. But I had no idea that I could be the originator of music until recently.

My creativity was totally released in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina hit my dear New Orleans. During the storm I painted N’Awlins, Pick up the Sticks. Having lived through Hurricane Betsy, I knew what Katrina was going to do to my family, friends, culture and history. I watched helplessly as the winds and water brought New Orleans to its’ knees. Like many others, I couldn’t find my family but fortunately art provided me a safe place to displace my emotions while I did what I needed to do to help my family and New Orleans pick up the pieces of the life they once knew.

I still hadn’t finish expressing my feelings about the betrayal and destruction this catastrophic storm had caused. I called a friend of mine in the music industry (Sonny Emory) and told him that I needed to write a song. He told me to do it. After writing the lyrics, Sonny created the amazing music and arrangement. The song is of course called, N’Awlins, Pick up the Sticks. It is clearly a song that needs to find its’ place in the world and I’m claiming, once released, that that will happen.

Since 2005, I have written other songs that I want to share with you.

N’Awlins, Pick Up the Sticks

Evacuation, mandatory relocation, no communication

So much devastation, searching for a loved one

No one else has heard from

Don’t know if we we’ll meet again

Or if a heaven they’ll be waiting

Well it’s time to pick up the sticks want to see you fixed, yah

Want to come home; it’s time to come home

Well where I leadith we could not see

Too afraid to hope, we just had to believe

Didn’t know when they would come to our rescue

Until they did we did what we do

We hoped and prayed and held each others hand

The only thing that mattered was our fellow man

It was a lesson learned, yah

New Orleans, I want to come home, it’s time to come home

Yah, New Orleans, it’s time to come home, it’s time to come home

Well, I got to pick up the sticks I want to see you fixed

Yah, want to come home, let me come home

Well it’s time to pick up the sticks want to see you fixed

Yah, I want to come home, It’s time to come home

Well, New Orleans, I want to come home, let me come home

Yah, New Orleans I want to come home, it’s time to come home

Well, I got to pick up the sticks want to see you fixed, yah

I want to come home, it’s time to come home

New Orleans I want to come home.

Out of the Rubble

Out of the rubble came triumph, it came to them all

Out of the rubble came life, they said no more strife

Out of the rubble came leaders, to lead them on

Out of the rubble came a chance to sing this song