On the highway of Life when we open our mind to the possibilities we never know where we’ll end up.
Have you ever been presented with an opportunity that, while not within your wheelhouse, had you not embraced it, you may have missed the experience of a lifetime? That happened to me in 1974, after graduating from college with a BA degree in music. I had long dreamed of writing, performing, and recording my own songs when such an opportunity presented itself to me. While it was not in my lane (comfort zone), I explored it anyway. Through an ad in the paper, I met a lady by the name of Rose Baker who was writing County Music lyrics and seeking a musician with which to collaborate—and she even was willing to pay $50.00 per song! Now THAT caught my attention; my first paying gig as a songwriter.
While my musical training was classical, I thought, “What the heck … what do I have to lose?” (Think of Pavarotti singing “Your Cheating Heart” and you’ll get the picture of how out of my lane I was.) Nevertheless, I got together with Rose and penned the music for two of her song lyrics. About that same time I met a gent at one of my gigs, Lee Hester, who became one of my die-hard fans and friends. Lee offered to finance and help produce the recording of the two songs. So, again, I thought, “What the heck … what do I have to lose?” and into the recording studio we went. We formed a music company called “Merittorious Productions” (misspelling intentional) and immediately entered the music biz.
The two songs were titled “Just See You Through” and “Where Did All the Fire Go?” These songs contained every possible problematic, tragic, heart-wrenching country music innuendo one could conceive of—ALL packed in just these two songs: “Side A” was about the guy in prison, and the woman waiting for the guy to get out of prison—it didn’t end well and thus, “Side B” was about the proverbial heartbreak of a love gone dead. The only thing that was missing was the dog who died in a pickup truck during a train wreck on a rainy night in Georgia. Suffice it to say, these were, without question, the two worst songs I have ever recorded. NOW, are you ready for the fun part?
Rose, God bless her little heart, who was from Oklahoma, seemed to know every manager of every truck stop along Route 66, took the record on the road. I know, even that sounds like a theme for a country song from the 70s, am I right? Rose took a big box of 45-records (long before the days of CD’s) and did a road-trip from California to the mid-west, and stopped at every truck stop along the way and gave a copy of the record to the manager asking them to put the record on their juke boxes—which they did. Believe it or not, the truckers began calling in to the country radio stations requesting the songs they had heard on the juke boxes. Sure enough, in a matter of several months, we had a record in the top 40 on a number of the county radio stations in the Heartland. DREAM REALIZED! I joined ASCAP, and the rest is the little known history of my extraordinarily short-lived country music career.
Over the years, I lost track of Rose and her husband, Jerry, and Lee, but I will long remember their dedication and love for country music and me. And it all began with, “What the heck … what do I have to lose?” And herein lies the message for us all. When unplanned opportunities spontaneously appear along the way, we may want to pause and consider saying, “What the heck… what have I got to lose?“ As it turned out, I discovered I had nothing to lose but everything to gain—including new friends and a plethora of once-in-a-lifetime experiences that are embedded in my heart and mind fifty years later.” True story—and I have the record to prove it. 🙂 What the heck.
Peace, Dennis
Laughing, Dennis! You started that at a far younger age than I did, but yes. I’ve lived a long life as an adult thinking / feeling much the same, although I don’t think I said those specific words.
My brain usually went quickly to “why not?”
I jumped at several offerings as an grown woman, and like you, without having the exact credentials for them. But several others saw something in me — maybe the willingness to just “go for it” — and voila! I was off and running!