For the First Time

One of my favorite movies is That Thing You Do. The story takes place in the early 60's and involves the genesis and the subsequent full arc of a one-hit-wonder pop band. The downtown shots of the movie were filmed in Orange, California--the city in which I was born. My favorite scene in the movie was captured in that downtown setting where the band members heard their song on the radio for the first time. They all jumped for joy and ran down the street to drummer Skitch Patterson's family appliance shop to rally the fervor. There is NOTHING like hearing your song on the airwaves for the first time.

During my senior year in high school, I was offered the opportunity, along with the band I was in, to come to Golden West College in Huntington Beach, CA, and produce two songs as guinea pigs in a lab project for their recording program. One of the songs needed to be an original and we were to be produced, recorded and mixed by students. A friend, who graduated from my high school the year before, had recommended me and my fellow band-mates to the head of the department as worthy candidates. The program at the junior college was one of, if not the only state college recording program in the entire U.S. at that time. This was the fall of 1977, and I was working on my prospects for what I was going to do when I graduated the following spring. I had written a song for my girlfriend at the time and the band set out to make this one of the two songs we would record. It turned out surprisingly well.

When the year was up, the committee in charge of choosing songs for the annual record release graciously added mine to one of the ten coveted slots. The day the record was released, I hurriedly ripped the plastic wrap from the cardboard sleeve and pulled out the disc to where my 3 1/2 minute song was carved in the grooves. A dream was realized after all those years of staring at album covers and hoping for the day when I would be in the band photo and my name would be in the liner-notes. When I decided to take my college freshman year as a student in that recording program, I was hanging out near the cafeteria when my song floated out of the school's radio station speakers. I didn't have my friends around to celebrate the moment, but it was quietly triumphant, none the less.

Fast forward fourteen years, after traveling around the world playing music, and settling in Mobile, Alabama with my bride and children, I had the great fortune of writing Ancient of Days with my pal, Gary Sadler. Again, our song made the cut for a new recording and I was looking forward to the thrill of hearing it being recorded live in Virginia Beach by Ron Kenoly. My kids were small and we all huddled in a single hotel room, along with my parents--who joined us for the momentous occasion. I will never forget looking across the row at the moment the song was being preformed to my parents, who graciously endured band rehearsals in their garage, and years of guitar lessons, beaming with pride--almost as if to say, "That crazy kid really did see his dreams come true!" Brenda said that she once heard Ancient of Days on the radio while waiting in the pick-up line at the kid's school. Yelling out of the window to the other moms in line with, "Hey, that's my husband's song on the radio!" is not something Brenda would do.

In the 20 some-odd years since, I have seen my songs recorded by numerous artists and have performed a few of them myself as the artist. My song, It's Only You, Jesus, is currently on fairly regular rotation at a radio station in the Nashville area. People come up to me to say they heard me singing on the radio. Even though its been 33 years since my first song wafted over the school radio station speakers, it never gets old. The thrill of a dream realized is the coolest feeling. I never want to take those moments for granted.