What inspired the musical side of your career?
Music comes naturally to me, and I even think in terms of a musical rhythm when I’m writing a script! I don’t know if that happens for other screenwriters with a musical background. I grew up singing in church, which I think trains your ear well for harmonies. I’ve written poetry since I was a young child, and songwriting is a poem to a melody. I can come up with a song fairly quickly and easily. So whenever I’ve had the opportunity to involve myself in music, I will! My first play was My Darling Josephine, a Western Comedy Musical and I wrote original songs in the style of the American Frontier Days-and I taught it to the great 5-person band we had starring Sayed Sabrina . For a while I was in with a blues-rock crowd in LA, and I ended up recording some of my original songs with them. Then I wrote those songs into a play called “Swept Away”-a chance to perform my songs and integrate it into the original theater I was doing at the Hollywood Fringe. Then at one point I got really into jazz, and especially Peggy Lee, so I wrote a cabaret with original plays around a lot of her songs, so that was a chance to combine my interests once again. I think I definitely have a bit of a jazzy twist to my original songs, which can drive my co-collaborators a little crazy, if they are used to 4/4 time or straight rock/blues. But I can’t help it-and usually after a bit of coaxing, they come to see that the little off-beat will work great. Right before the pandemic, I wrote Horny! The Musical -you guessed it, a comedy. It was a full on musical with singing and dancing throughout. Well, then as live performance shut down, I veered more into film, which I wanted to be doing more of anyway. And when we shot The Delicate Cycle and came to post-production where it was time to choose music, I realized, why shouldn’t I write the songs, since it’s my movie, and I can? Ha ha. I was really dying to do something musical anyway, as I hadn’t in a while. So my friend Jimmy Sloan offered to do the music, and this ended up growing into a whole ambitious project of its own.
How did you approach songwriting for the soundtrack to The Delicate Cycle? Why did this style of music work best?
It was a very organic process, which grew out of an artist Jimmy was working with, Steve Ray Ladson, a consummate talent. It is my absolute musical pleasure to work with what I call a “singer’s” musician, where there’s an instinctual musical understanding right away that’s so easy and artistic-that’s Steve Ray. I didn’t have to spend much time explaining, he was already playing it. I sang “My Heart is Broke”, which opens the film. I felt that was a new twist on being a director-it was my actual voice introducing my story. “Sunday’s Best” was a much bigger affair, which involved once again Jimmy Sloan’s relationship with Jimmy Carter, living legend and winner of 6 Grammys with The Blind Boys of Alabama. They were all in town for the Grammys and we had just one day where everyone was available. I listened to Jimmy Carter’s style, then wrote the lyrics and melody while my two year old was taking a nap. Then we went to the studio that night. The band members were pretty amazed at the quick turnaround, but it seemed normal to me-indie projects always require you to come up with something extremely creative in a very limited time frame. I was simply humbled and honored that everyone, and especially Jimmy Carter, would make themselves available for the song. So it all happened based on the talent pool and style that we had available. My church background for sure came in handy writing a Gospel song. Rhythmically and lyric-wise, it was fun and easy. Of course, if you’re listening to the story in the songs, I worked in a laundromat and washing-your-clothes theme to both songs-the film is set in a laundromat.
“My Heart is Broke” is jazzy-as I said earlier, a lot of my songs just come out that way. It has a bit of the languid lounge singer in it-I thought that captured the atmosphere of a laundromat, where you can’t really be in any hurry because you are waiting anyway. and there are some very interesting characters lurking around, with their rolls of quarters. “Sunday’s Best” was a Gospel song because-I had Jimmy Carter as a vocalist! What a great opportunity and so much fun.
How did you approach songwriting for the soundtrack to The Delicate Cycle? Why did this style of music work best?
It was a very organic process, which grew out of an artist Jimmy was working with, Steve Ray Ladson, a consummate talent. It is my absolute musical pleasure to work with what I call a “singer’s” musician, where there’s an instinctual musical understanding right away that’s so easy and artistic-that’s Steve Ray. I didn’t have to spend much time explaining, he was already playing it. I sang “My Heart is Broke”, which opens the film. I felt that was a new twist on being a director-it was my actual voice introducing my story. “Sunday’s Best” was a much bigger affair, which involved once again Jimmy Sloan’s relationship with Jimmy Carter, living legend and winner of 6 Grammys with The Blind Boys of Alabama. They were all in town for the Grammys and we had just one day where everyone was available. I listened to Jimmy Carter’s style, then wrote the lyrics and melody while my two year old was taking a nap. Then we went to the studio that night. The band members were pretty amazed at the quick turnaround, but it seemed normal to me-indie projects always require you to come up with something extremely creative in a very limited time frame. I was simply humbled and honored that everyone, and especially Jimmy Carter, would make themselves available for the song. So it all happened based on the talent pool and style that we had available. My church background for sure came in handy writing a Gospel song. Rhythmically and lyric-wise, it was fun and easy. Of course, if you’re listening to the story in the songs, I worked in a laundromat and washing-your-clothes theme to both songs-the film is set in a laundromat.
“My Heart is Broke” is jazzy-as I said earlier, a lot of my songs just come out that way. It has a bit of the languid lounge singer in it-I thought that captured the atmosphere of a laundromat, where you can’t really be in any hurry because you are waiting anyway. and there are some very interesting characters lurking around, with their rolls of quarters. “Sunday’s Best” was a Gospel song because-I had Jimmy Carter as a vocalist! What a great opportunity and so much fun.
What else can we expect to hear from it, that we haven’t already discussed?
2024 is about showing the film-it has already world premiered at the Chandler Film Festival in January and won Best Short Film. For me the music is such a highlight. My dream is to have a 2024 concert/screening party where we also perform the songs live, with Jimmy Carter!
What else can we expect to hear from it, that we haven’t already discussed?
2024 is about showing the film-it has already world premiered at the Chandler Film Festival in January and won Best Short Film. For me the music is such a highlight. My dream is to have a 2024 concert/screening party where we also perform the songs live, with Jimmy Carter!