Writing Rock America

Q: When, why, and how did you write the album Rock America?

Rick: Rock America was the third and last album of the old songs I cobbled together from two full boxes of cassettes I had lugged around with me most of my adult life. It was not all the songs I ever wrote but except for a few that were lost the best.

My intent was to follow John Lennon’s dictum of keeping everything. He felt all an artists work was valid. I never thought I would ever get to hear the cassettes again when I put them away to move to California to join my wife. I was living in Springfield, Virginia where the humidity is legendary at least for those who don’t grow up there. One day I took a cassette from the box, inserted it in a four track cassette player and to my horror it began to spool out onto the deck. I tried a second one and it would not move at all. On occasion my worst fears would be realized as the tape would stretch or bunch up and be useless forever. I decided to not mess with it any more or I would not have anything left to even have a professional restore it if that were even possible.

Q: So how did you solve the problem?

To my relief moving to Southern California proved the right move in more than one way. For me it was the right move but for other aspiring musicians maybe not so much. Years earlier a friend of mine had driven cross country to Los Angeles to make his mark in music. A year later he was back in Virginia working at the same place, discouraged. Art is a tough discipline to get into. I had an advantage as it was not for the money that I wrote and played songs but for the love of the music which of course is Rock ‘n’ Roll. One needs to have the right attitude.

When I got there I had  a bunch of 8 track ½” reel to reel tapes recorded on a now non-working Tascam 38, which I had brought with me. I sent the tape reels out to be copied to digital medium and when that was done had them stored on a hard drive to listen back. The tapes of everything I had done on the 38 with the band Vanishing Point from Northern Virginia were on it. I also had tapes of the songs I had written while in Southern France a few years earlier. I had recorded then after hours when working on my wife’s parents truck farm in San Laurent Du var. The songs were crude but the melodies and lyrics were worth saving for a future date.

Q: And the cassette tapes what happened to them?

Rick: Having heard these ten to twenty year old songs from the 38 and relieved that they were digitized, I decided to see how the cassettes were as they contained most of the music I had ever written going back to my college days in the early 70s. To my surprise the first cassette I inserted tracked perfectly and I was able to transfer them from the Porta Studio to the DAW. I could hear them through my 003 headphones  and the Pro Tools software I had purchased a year ago in Springfield. I proceeded to create these songs anew from the rough demos as a base using the digital workstation. One after another I was able to set the tempo to each digital copy of the stereo track in Pro Tools and proceeded to recreate the songs by adding drums and new guitar and bass tracks.

Q: So how many songs did you end up with?

Rick: I ended up with AIFF files of close to 70 songs, half of them new for 2016. I recorded them and registered them with the U.S. Copyright Office. The third and final album of that trilogy is called Rock America. Working on old material inspired me to create new songs.

Q: Evidently the songs were not polished and a lot of work was still involved. So tell us how you wrote Rock America and what gave you the idea for each of the songs? It seems many songwriters encounter writers block, did you experience that?

Rick: Well not seriously. There were times where I had had writers block but that was only when I tried to adapt to the current trends like when bands were incorporating synthesizers and Disco music. Writing songs is a complicated process. Like painting or writing literature it is compiling memories, transforming them and emitting the feelings and emotions generated through a medium. In this case it was the music. When I picked up the guitar I was already used to singing when I was about 12 years old. Melody is key so in essence I had two instruments to work with, a guitar and my voice. Any songwriter of pop music that depends heavily on lyrics and melody, needs to learn to sing. It is a must. I have heard everyone, with continual practice can learn to sing unless they have a vocal disability .

Q: Why the melody?

Rick: My mom always played classical music and we had to listen to it when we were home during the summers. I had acquire a few albums, one of Glen Miller, which was part of the collection my mom had purchased for us kids when we were in Buenos Aires; and at a PTA sale at our elementary school I picked up an album of Kai Winding Trombones. I later learned that these Big Band leaders were Jazz musicians. I found that out later. I just enjoyed the music.

Q: Did that lead to an interest in American music or have you always been interested?

I have always been interested in Jazz but afraid of it. There was no time for a music education as my dad with the experience of the great depression and hard times always thought one needed gainful employment something the arts often did not offer. So here I was with a dad who was very practical and a mom who grew up in Paris and loved Opera and the Arts and made sure us kids were deeply steeped in the classics.

After marrying my college sweetheart she and I went to Nice, France where she grew up. I was very sick and that was our only course of action as in the U.S. often one had to be employed a year before qualifying for health benefits as in the job I was just starting. Besides I had never been to France though I had French grandparents still living in Paris and my sisters had travelled there, some more than once. On the flight home from our first visit I was able to meet some black Jazz musicians. I conversed with them and was amazed how this travel across the pond was their life. They would travel there because if England was enthralled with blues France had always loved American Jazz. It was an eye opener I had heard about this but saw it first hand and it made me look more closely into Jazz’s influence on Europe between the World Wars. With modern art it was a time of freeform Expressionism. Even writing had its stream of consciousness writers like James Joyce whom I studied in a course I took for English Literary Criticism.

It would take a second World war to introduce Big Band music and later Blues to the British Isles. I learned life is the best history teacher if you keep your eyes open and your ears unplugged.

Q: Was being in France what inspired you to write Ooooh Oui.

Rick: Yes and no, My grandmother who was French married a veteran of WWI who was an army ambulance driver. My mother, her sister, and my grandparents got out of Paris before the Germans entered the city at the start of WWII, escaped to Franco’s Spain, and sailed to the U.S.

French phrases and music from the 30s were part of my mothers collection as were 33 1/3 rpm of operas and classical pieces. We were steeped in French culture though not as much immersed as we were in the Latin Ameircan one. Still it was a part of my family that could not be ignored.

Q: Why did you name the first song Oooh Oui

As kids we loved the phrase Oooh la la. We thought it was funny when we heard our grandmother or mom express it on certain occasions. As pre teens it was the only expression one could get away with in the sixties and not be given a cross look. So it seemed to us. It meant something was a little ‘riskay’.

I think it’s been used in songs but I wanted to do something different so I chose Oooh Oui. Its meaning would translate to ooh yes.

Q: It’s an interesting song and a bit different than most. What was the inspiration for it?

Rick: My degree was in English Literary Criticism and so all the elements of poetry and writing were a large part of my studies. Symbolism is highly important in poetry as it is in music and one always strives to include double meanings in their lyrics. It was a song written probably in the 70s or 80s. I would have to check. Growing up in a diplomatic family we were always taught to be on our best behavior, which was not always easy and in Latin America.  Under the age of 18 we were always chaperoned. I had neither a car nor a drivers license though I was able to overcome that difficulty somewhat but never able to pursue a romance as it required public transportation or friends. This was a universal problem for American youth at the time. On a second level it was what I thought how a young actor or actress would feel if every moment of their lives was controlled by a handler. I thought of some of the Hollywood stories from the 50s.

Q: Were the others similarly derived?

Each one has a story and that is what makes songwriting so rewarding, especialy an album. Some use lyrics to enhance a songs cadence and repetition, others for the story it tells, and everything in between. That’s just the lyrical side of music while adding the rhythm and musical elements. I personally think that music is the most emotive art of them all.

Q: There is always the chicken or the eggs question. Which do you write first the lyrics or the melody?

Rick: I have a degree in English from a small college in Wise county, Virginia. It used to be called Clinch Valley College and located in a coal mining area near the town if Wise in Appalachia, VA. I literary fell in love with a girl who was a coal miner’s daughter. It was the first time I fell in love in the full and total sense of the word, something most college age youths want and do experience. The years I spent there provided a rich vein of resources as it has for decades to musicians and songwriters. I was no exception. It is the birthplace of Bluegrass and forms part of the area where rockabilly got its roots and country western music became an industry. But, and I think it’s true to say, that music differentiates itself from literature in its sonic capabilities. Since that is what it is about other wise it would be simply poetry in the best case scenario. Because of this importance I always have the scratch melody done first. The lyrical content can take years to complete if one as not rushed for time.

 

Q: What advice would you give a young songwriter. Should they seek special training?

Rick: I think the problem today is life is too fast and too overwhelming. There is too much content and we have to succeed too early.

But, Life is not over when past the age of fifty. When I was a teenager it took the Beatles to prove that shedding outside control is paramount for an artists growth, and it was first expressed by artists from Motown but Blues and Jazz artist led the way. Many had a career that spanned their whole lifetime. My dad once said that there were shinning stars among his peers but their brightness petered out during the course of their lifetime. I guess what he said was that time is a true test of a persons abilities. Some flower early some much later but the advantage is a long carer doing what you love to do and having the wherewithal and resources to allow one to take their time.

Q: Did you heed his advice and let life take its course?

What he meant was that persistence and knowledge were invaluable and experience most important but he also said to keep busy and absorb as much knowledge and as unbiased as one could. He was a reporter by instinct and analyst which is what in essence he was trained to do as a Navy Officer in WWII, employed by the old United States Information Service and latter in the U.S. state department.

Foreign Office.

Q: Oh my, that sounds a bit overwhelming, you traveled as a kid?

Rick: We all are sponges. I saw it as a blessing when arriving at a new country and a curse when we had to leave our friends after only two or four years. Today it has given me a wealth of information from experiences few are lucky to have. But everyone has their own particular life experiences and an artists mission is to take what he knows and has experienced and translate that into a universal message everyone can relate to.

Q: Does ones upbringing confine one to a certain road?

Rick: No, If you educate yourself and broaden your horizons then you can take what you have experienced first hand and extrapolate. That is what an artist does. Your life is the ink that pours out onto a page and becomes universal, the bucket that holds the paint, or the notes that are bouncing in your head. You just have to arrange it in a personal coherent order. Again the term books come from books is relevant; it is one of may favorites. We absorb from them and then we must learn how to channel it in a unique and effective way. I always felt if one is out there for money or fame their creativity can suffer. There are many reasons for this and there are benefits. It is the balance one must have and we don’t know how our life will turn out till one looks back. I cannot live without the ‘arts’, plain and simple, but a true artist needs to have full control or if not that control will be dictated by the man or the organization that funds them.

Q: It’s Movie Time how did that come about? Did you write it before you came to Los Angeles?

Rick: Here I am sitting at the computer (DAW) hooked up to a Digidesign 003, in LA of all places, writing songs to include with the ones I had transferred from cassettes to Pro Tools. I was finally into the third of the three albums, Something Brewing and Crazy Road roughly written, and as with them needed a few more tunes to include.

I was asking myself what was LA most famous for. Film of course. So I started with a concept about making one’s own movie, which happens quite a lot in LA. Some songs naturally sprung to mind. The act of filming “Singing in the Rain”. Or Sheryl Crow’s “All I Wanna Do” gave me two ideas that showed me  some direction to take. The narrator (myself) singing my the song is asking the listener to come down to LA, and to have a good time even with the possibility they may be “Found”. But the deeper meaning would be that everyone’s life is a story and each of us can play it better than anyone else. Found and movie time can have multiple meanings, including discovering themselves.

Q: How about one more? Is there one you are especially fond of and how did you come to write it. One of the older ones since I take it “It’s Movie Time” is a more recent one.

Rick: Yes, that one was written in 2016. Can I pick a couple?

Q: Yes, of course.

I grew up in a family of one brother and four sisters. I am close to my sisters and brother and had a great family, for which I am thankful. Most of my songs are about the environment and women. And through the songs the listener can understand what the singer is feeling, in this case that would be me. 

We all have our fears, desires and aspirations and tin the song “You Know It Ain’t Right” the young man is in love with a young lady he sees every day going to and from work and wants to be recognized by her, not realizing that she might want the same. We are funny creatures. What thoughts we transfer to others can often be totally wrong. She is a beautiful young lady coming back from a regular day job but the singer puts her on a pedestal. Our impressions about others can be completely wrong as I have often found out. The title reflects what some blue collar workers I worked with would say about any young lady wearing a  mini skirts walking pats the service station. They would say things like that should be against the law. I changed it to you know it ain’t right.

Another one I had been thinking of writing was “In Bed With You. Everyone sometimes wishes they were on a romantic vacation in a cabin on a snowy slope not having to go to work and just lying in bed with their special other and wishing he didn’t have to go into work if it would only snow. The song is about that event coming true.

But to emphasize the isolation he can’t open the windows or door which can happen when there is a lot of snow. So he asks to get back into bed to stay warm.

Q: Is there a reason you used this title Rock America and the images in the booklet. Has it been used before.

Rick: I have been an advocate for the planet and all living things and even ran for Congress in 2000. I also have designed electric vehicles, but that is another story. Rock America was a way to bring together certain songs about Americans, their loves, fears, and desires. At a time when we need to pay great attention to the climate crisis, we are divided politically.  This is unquestionably a failure by all of us and we need to come together to make beneficial changes for everyone. It will be a big task to restore the climate and we need every liberal, conservative, and progressive to make this happen. The environment is something that everyone should pull behind regardless of their religious or political beliefs. The album art shows pictures of me and my family growing up in the U.S. and is intended to show our country as somewhat fractured but still a beacon of the world if we want to be. 

Q: Thank you Rick, maybe we can continue some other time. I see that time is up.

Rick: Thank you.