I watched the Michael Jackson Memorial as most of the world watched yesterday. It was a beautiful memorial for a wonderful music artist that brought a lot of happiness and light into the world with his music.
For me, it was so much more than that though. You see, the past few years for me have been very rough with personal problems 2 years ago and just when I began healing from those wounds and scars, I began dealing with my mother's health last year. Then that continued to this year where I lost my mom in March and as you can imagine, its been a personal hell the past 2 years or so. With all that happening in my personal life, it should come as no surprise that I began slowly losing myself and what I am passionate about. My music and everything having to do with that aspect of myself began taking more and more of a backseat to all the other problems and issues I was dealing with. I must say that I have been a broken and lost man these past 2 years. Broken from all life had thrown at me and lost as to what I should do about my music. I am a very optimistic person by nature but all the negativity life had thrown at me and feeling let down by life and some of those around me led me down a very introspective path. I am a very giving person and I felt and learned that some of those that relied on me could not be relied on. By the same token, some that I barely knew became ones that I could rely on and that helped balance out my anger and frustration. It was very sobering and made me sad too. So I was broken, lost and sad. Not a good combination of feelings to have. My mother's death was the final straw that sent all the feelings crashing in a downward spiral of introspection but it also helped me to begin finding myself. Like I said, I am an optimistic person and had to find a positive from within all the bad happening in my life. I had many regrets over my mom not seeing me become the success I had wanted to be. BUT, I know she IS looking down at me and will see what I will do. She is the one that introduced me to music as a child as she always liked to listen to all types of music and never pushed any one style of music on me. When the time came that I wanted to do music, she not only supported me but also became my manager and pushed me until I took the reins and ran with it. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I had to go back to what I had set out to do with my music - I owed that to her. However, with so long not doing music - it becomes daunting to get yourself back into the mindset of an artist. All the doubts, insecurities and other things that come with being an artist can work a number on you, especially when you've faced so much adversity. I had friends that told me to use my music to work out my sadness and emotions but for a singer/songwriter like me that uses so much emotion in his lyrics and sings that way as well, drawing on these emotions that are still raw is very hard. Its very hard to revisit that pain. I slowly worked my thoughts back to that of an artist but was still finding it hard to make that final push. However, I was finding that peace within myself that I had long been missing.
Then Michael Jackson died. I have always been a fan of MJ's music. He has written and sung some of the greatest music of all time. I always felt a connection to him as an artist in that I knew how it felt to be shy and misunderstood and I can understand how he turned into MJ the performer once he hit the stage. It is something we share in common. MJ was an "old soul" which is why he was able to sing songs well beyond his years even as a child. I always felt that connection as well.
His death and all the recent stories of what he accomplished in music, not only in music but what he was able to do with his music combined with the introspection of my mom's passing made me more introspective as to what I set out to do and haven't done with my music. For those of you that have followed me for years (or have just read my bio
), you know that I had a rock band named Vogue's Rogues and a lot of our music dealt with societal and environmental issues. This is something I had planned to continue to a higher level with my new rock band Society's Soul but all that took a backseat as I explained above. Hearing songs that MJ wrote such as "Heal the World', "We are the World", "Human nature", Black or white" reminded me of the message laden songs I had wanted to write. Also, hearing of all his charitable works. Of course, I am not nor will ever be in MJ's class of what he accomplished but it made me sad and frustrated to see where I was at and all those emotions I had been dealing with but at the same time it started awakening something within me.Watching the MJ Memorial yesterday and hearing all the stories and accomplishments as well as all the love he had from his fans helped me find myself. Yes I was sad watching it and was moved many times to tears by the outpouring of love and respect BUT it also helped me remember that I have my own story to write and its time to getting back to that story and write some new chapters. 2 vastly different people - my mom and MJ helped me to find something I had been missing for so long. Its said that God works in mysterious ways and as long as you believe and are open to the signs, he will provide and I can attest that he has for me. I am ready to get back to where my passion lays, to doing music. That is why I say thanks to Michael, because in death he continues to inspire. Not only MJ but all the positive messages spoken at the Memorial of what he tried to accomplish with his music inspired me to get back to where my passion is. As for Long live the King - I not only am referring to the King of Pop who will live forever with his musical legacy and what he has given to charities but I also mean it for the King of Kings who worked in mysterious ways to help bring me back from the purgatory of the past few years to showing me that in going through this he was also helping me to find myself.
I'm back! Ready to get to doing and performing new music and working with artists and meeting all my great fans who have stuck by me and support my music.