Quiet Coffee on the Veranda

I always wonder what makes the difference in a mornings music. Yesterday, all screeching parrots and rasping Chachalacas, today mostly quiet with a flock Keel-billed Toucans croaking away above the river and the gentle hoo-hoooing of a Red pilled pigeon in front of the veranda as we eat breakfast. Both mornings equally bright, clear, and cool. Go figure.

So, as to Doktah D's music, let's talk today about how a hobby turned into a career. I started writing, first poetry and then songs, as a way of keeping track of my own emotional journey through life. As an Anthropologist, I was really required to keep track of what others were saying and doing around me, but my personal feelings and reactions were hardly appropriate data. Yet, we are all profoundly moved by the people and events swirling around us. These songs, then, are my way of dealing with events in my own life and the lives of others I care about without just simply "outing" all our respective dirty laundry in public! Gradually, here in Belize, I started performing these songs, first with Mike Hill and Tim O'Mally, as the trio Neva Betta, then for a while with Sam Harris and the World Culture Band, and finally with Santos Dominguez. Santos and I stopped playing together a couple of years ago, after which I went out as a solo sing/songwriter for a bit but it was nowhere near as much fun as playing with young Santos. I reduced my musical activity to writing songs and singing them to myself on the veranda of evenings and playing out as a guest blues harpist with local musicians now and again.
The recording started as a "bucket list" project to leave something of my self to my daughter and grand kids. I called in Sammy Harris to help and then we called in Santos. What started as a family document however, quickly morphed into a serious recording effort thanks largely to the faith Sam and Santos showed in the early recordings. *next up, Bittersweet Dreams and the recording team*