Picking Up Where I left Off

Some of you may know that years ago I was diligently pursuing my craft as a songwriter and performer, playing my songs in listening rooms, a festival or two here or there, and songwriter circles in New York and Nashville in pursuit of that illusive dream of landing songs on someone else's albums.  I was beginning to have some small successes, with a song on Car Talk, a song scheduled to open a season of MTV's Road Rules series, a song received significant country radio play in Australia that was recorded on a Nashville country artist's album with most of Alan Jackson's band, and things were looking up.

Then I had an auto accident.  Some say I was lucky to get out of my truck alive.  But I wasn't that lucky.  I broke two small bones in my right hand which left me with an inability to play guitar or piano at all for the better part of a year, and for long after that, left me with such fatigue and loss of strength and dexterity in the hand after playing for only a short time that I could not continue in playing.  For some reason, my lyrical muse went out the window.  Always having a need to find creative outlets in my life, I turned to fine art photography, I really enjoyed it, and still do. You can see some of it if you like at carlrubinphotography.com   But something was missing.  It wasn't the same thing as songwriting and delivering a song to an attentive audience.

I'd started writing again some years after the accident, but something was still missing.  The muse wasn't fully returned  I decided the muse needed to be "tested".  So, I went to the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, with the idea of listening to the singer/songwriters there to see if I felt I "fit in" and, more importantly, to play in some of the late-night/all night song circles.   I would up playing some of my songs at song circles which were attended by some really good writers, some of whom were performers at the Festival.  And the reactions I got made it clear that it was time to come back.

So, as they say, there's no time like the present....Here I come...

I've got a host of new songs, some completed, some nearly so, that I'll be working on over the next few months.  Some will be posted on my website for listening or download, some will be debuted in upcoming performances (more on that later), and some will no doubt find their way to a second album release down the road.  And, of course, I'll plug some to other artists.  

Hope you stay with me to see how it all unwinds...Carl

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