THE ROAD
TO MY FIRST MUSICAL CD:
Doin’ It
My Way
As you read, click on the highlighted words or
phrases for some interesting viewing and
information.
Even
after reading, many people still ask me
a specific question. And the answer is:
Yes! I am a one-man band. Some dislike
that idea and some appreciate it.
Hopefully, you won’t mind after reading.
First! Some Credits
My
heartfelt thanks and appreciation goes
out to Doug Diamond of
Diamondisc Audio in Nashville,
Tennessee who created the logo for my
company, designed the aesthetics and
main requirements of this website, and
also did the CD mastering. As you will
notice, the site is far from completion
since there remains some editing to be
done by me. I will be adding a number
of interesting items to it
periodically. So, keep in touch. My
heartfelt thanks and appreciation also
goes out to Lisa Sutton of
Lisa Sutton Music Enterprises, also
in Nashville, who did a remarkable job
designing the CD’s cover, faceplate,
booklet, and tray card. As you will
notice on their websites, Doug and Lisa
have done work for many renowned musical
artists.
Now! The Road
In
July 1952 at age10, I left my
paradise-like native island of
Trinidad,
West Indies to reunite with my
parents in the bustling big city of
Detroit, Michigan USA. Dad left in
1949 to get a foothold and Mom joined
him a year later. Trinidad is where
calypso music and
steel drum music were originated.
As you may have guessed, I am definitely
dual-cultured now. Though it was
extremely tough being repatriated, the
move to Detroit afforded my siblings and
me a special gift that we never would
have received otherwise---personal
interaction with future celebrities.
Bear in mind that although the memories
I will pen are vivid to me, they may not
be so to the celebrities.
In 1953, I attended Crossman elementary school where
Freda Payne (future singer of
“Band Of
Gold”) sat directly in front of me.
She was cute, but her hair always seemed
to be uncombed. Back then I had a thing
for girls’ hair to look neat. Not so
anymore! Lately, I’ve seen Freda
perform on the oft-televised “Doo Wop”
reviews, and now she’s soooo…sexy!!!!!
As an interesting aside, I couldn’t
remember how to spell Crossman (one
ess or two), so I did an
advanced
Google search on the web to show only
items that included the words “Crossman”
and “Detroit”. The very first item that
emerged was an interview with
Lily Tomlin as she returned to the
Fisher Theatre in Detroit with her
show “The Search For
Signs of Intelligent Life in the
Universe.” I wondered: What in the
world does Lily Tomlin have to do with
any article containing those two words?
The answer came when I read the
following excerpt:
Q: You were born right in the heart of Detroit. You went to
Crossman Elementary, Hutchins Junior
High and Cass Tech, where you were
captain of the cheerleading team. What
are some of your memories of the city
back then?
A: I grew up on Hazelwood, between
Byron and Woodrow Wilson, near John C.
Lodge and Clairmount in the old
neighborhood that
burned down in the '67 riots. My old
apartment house got gutted by fire and
later it was torn down. My dad used to
hang out on 12th Street, and I'd go to
the bookie joints and bars with him. I
was
very socially conscious as a kid
growing up in my neighborhood, which was
a predominantly black neighborhood.
I
was truly taken aback! I couldn’t
believe that after all the years of
seeing her on national TV, and in
movies, that she lived on the next
street over from me, between the same
cross streets, and that we attended
Hutchins junior high school at the
same time. Approximately my age, Lily is
a comedienne that is famous for her
impression of Ernestine (a 1920s
snorting telephone operator) on the
once very popular
Rowan & Martin's “Laugh-in” TV show.
While at Hutchins, I played basketball on the school
playground almost every evening after
school with two of the future
Temptations:
Otis Williams (originally Otis
Miles and group leader and organizer)
and
Melvin Franklin (original bass
singer). I was assigned to homeroom
223 and Melvin and Otis were across the
hall in 224. I had no idea that they
would be so famous. We lived on the
corner house of Atkinson Street and the
newly constructed John C. Lodge
expressway.
Barrett Strong lived on Atkinson
also, but a block and a half away. He
knew I had a heartthrob for his sister,
Carolyn. Following his first &
signature-recording hit “Money,” Barrett
eventually became a prime figure at
Motown. He wrote many of the
Temptations’ songs and for many other
Motown artists.
My music involvement did not begin until 1958 when I joined
my high school chorus at Wilbur Wright (now
Murray Wright). There is a
picture of me in either the 1958 or 1959
yearbook holding a xylophone and
standing next to
Brian Holland of the now renowned
Motown song-writing team “Holland-Dozier-Holland.”
Before I left Detroit in 1983 to
relocate in Miami, Florida (the
climate and scenery reminded me of
Trinidad), I packed the yearbook and
some other important memorabilia in a
footlocker and placed it in a storage
facility up there. When I eventually
attempted to retrieve it, the facility
no longer existed. Brian’s older
brother,
Eddie Holland (whom I never met)
graduated from the same school a full
year before I arrived there. Later,
following the trend of Detroit
youngsters, I started singing doo-wop
with a quartet (I can’t remember if
we ever gave the group a name).
Geraldine Ashford, one of our members,
is the older sister of
Rosalind Ashford (a member of “Martha
and the Vandellas”). I remember
our group denying Rosalind her request
to join us because we considered her too
young. Our bad!!
While Motown Was
Still In Its Embryo Stage
In late1959, my father decided that I was spending too much
of my leisure time with the wrong crowd
and he enlisted me in the
U.S. Air Force. I did not start
playing a musical instrument until 1963
after I found myself alone with a piano
in the airmen’s club on
Spangdahlem Air Base in West Germany
where I was stationed. Since then, I’ve
taught myself to read music and play the
piano. Of course, a true musician knows
that he/she can never stop learning
about music and that the field can never
be truly mastered.
When I returned to Detroit after my 6-year stint in the Air
Force, I realized that Barrett Strong
did not forget me. As he exited his car
while I was entering Maul’s nightclub on
Joy Road to see
Dennis Edwards perform with his band
(Dennis eventually replaced
David Ruffin as a lead singer with
the Temptations), he called my
name. I told him how popular his song
“Money” was in Germany and in Biloxi,
Mississippi (Keesler
Air Force Base was my first
assignment). He shrugged and said
something like “That old thing…” and
then mentioned his new role of writing
music for Motown.
Since
then, and while working regular
nine-to-fives, I’ve played keyboards
with “Noble Wilson’s Caribbean Calypsos”
band at the Michigan State Fair, bass
drums with “Universal Steel Orchestra”
in several U.S. cities, and keyboards
with “The Force Band” at popular night
spots in Miami like the “Clevelander”
hotel on South Beach, “Sundays On The
Bay” on Key Biscayne, and the “Pier
House Inn” on North Beach. But never
able to do what I’ve always really
wanted to do.
Thanks
to today’s technology, I have my first
opportunity to play, record, edit, mix
and place on CD some of the songs I
like. It allows me to do all these
things by myself in the privacy of my
own home. It didn’t take long to
realize that switching from
musician-to-engineer-to-producer
requires a lot of right-brain to
left-brain coordination, and can be very
frustrating at times. Nevertheless, I
felt like a young boy with a new toy.
For this reason, I apologize in advance
if any of the songs disappoint you. I
am not sure that what you will hear is
truly the musical style or genre I will
pursue in the future, but the songs are
simply tunes I like that entered my mind
while playing with my new toy for the
first time.
The
toy is a virtual home music studio
composed of:
- A Digital Recording Studio made by
BOSS (BR-1600 CD) variety of drumbeats
to select and I can create my own
- A virtual studio made by Cakewalk for
editing and mixing audio sound tracks
(SONAR 6 Producer Edition)
- A high-tech computer to run the
virtual studio (Systemax
AMD Athlon 64 processor, 3200+, 2 GHz, 1 GB ram)
- A 30” widescreen monitor with 1280x768
pixels resolution (NEC 3000)
- A good microphone for vocals (Behringer
B2 Pro)
- A decent pair of monitor speakers
(Truth B2031)
- A couple decent pairs of headphones
(Phillips
SBC HN110)
- A keyboard workstation (KORG Triton
88-key)
With
the exception of the vocal renditions,
the Korg workstation is the source of
all tones you hear on the CD. It looks
like a regular electronic piano, but
with its computerized insides, it does
much more. For example, the actual
sounds of drums, bass, horns, violins,
etc. can be sampled into the keyboard
and when the keys are played, the tones
of the sampled instruments are heard
instead of tones indigenous to a piano
or synthesizer. That is how I am able
to act as a one-man band or orchestra as
needed. Of course, the ability to play
a piano is essential. Separate sound
tracks are created for each instrument
played. All tracks are then
meticulously edited as needed. The
final step is to mix each track
carefully to taste i.e., kick drum is
too loud, take the sax volume up a
little…etc. For an in-depth look at how
it’s all done, I'll soon provide a video
entitled: The
Making Of 'Doin' It My Way'.
At the risk of seeming pompous, I must mention that the
styling and playing of all tunes on the
CD were done solely by me. I was not
trying to be selfish, but with so many
instruments at my disposal in the
workstation, I had to see what I could
create musically without the
participation of other musicians. I
also must mention that others composed
all of the songs on the CD. However, I
got the required permissions and I
enjoyed applying my own style to each.
I know that my vocalizations would never
get me in as a contestant on “American
Idol” but I don’t think you would throw
tomatoes at me either. My next CD will
consist of all original compositions. I
currently have six ready for tweaking
and many other ideas musically noted and
pending development.
All
artists appreciate reviews (good or bad)
and I am no exception. The page
containing the song clips allows you
that opportunity. It has a link where
you can anonymously rate the songs on
the CD from favorite to least favorite
and it can accommodate your
comments. And believe me, feedback like
that would help me enormously in future
projects.
I
constantly feel that my musical
abilities should be much more advanced,
but I thank God for the amount that I
have. It brings me great joy, and my
hope is that others will appreciate some
of the music I produce.
Thanks
for reading, and ENJOY!
Lloyd A. Simmons (AKA La-sim-mo)
Email Me
...and now check
out "Doin' It My Way"
