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I started playing guitar around age 10, wrote a couple of songs when I was 18, and then didn't write again until I was 26, when I joined a very good band in El Paso. I had always loved poetry, and somehow having this band "outlet" triggered my writing impulse. By far the truly great thing about this band was that -- besides being excellent players -- they were open to performing a couple of my songs.
In October, 1972 I moved to NYC to pursue a singer/songwriter career. I had a total of $500 and no place to stay. I got a temporary job working at Macy's for the Christmas season, and volunteered to be on the Thanksgiving parade; I held onto one of Dino the Dinosaur's ropes. I was totally alone that day, and ate dinner at some diner after the parade. It was a very dark time in my life. I was in a rat-hole room in a rat-hole apartment I shared with two Puerto Ricans and a Chinese guy. Luckily, it was on W. 28th between 6th and 7th Aves., so I could walk to Macy's. All in all the three months I worked there were -- despite my abject poverty -- a wonderful experience.
FYI - All my El Paso friends and family thought I was deluded. I knocked around the Village doing showcases whenever I could, and about three years later got my first cut with Jackie DeShannon -- a song called "Dorothy" ; it was about what might have happened to her when he got back to Kansas. It was produced by Jim Ed Norman.
In 1975 I got another temp job at Harcourt Brace publishing, and this job turned into a full-time one, and I continued to work there until in 1978 I was discovered by Judy Collins, via Tom Paxton, who I met at a showcase at the Bottom Line. I asked him if he would forward a few songs to Judy, and he did!. This eventually led to Judy's album "Hard Times For Lovers" -- plus her getting me my first staff songwriting gig with the Entertainment Company, which was producing the record. Other songwriters on that album -- much to my flabbergasted amazement -- included Randy Newman, Don Henley/Glen Frey, Alan and Marilyn Bergman, Marvin Hamlisch/Carol Bayer Sager, Rogers & Hart, and Stephen Sondheim. I felt way, way over my head, which I was.
Me and Jimmy -- inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame 2006
Me and Even Stevens at Claudio's Clam Bar -- Greenport
. . . to be continued
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