Happy 2008. Off to a rip-roaring start in the New Year...I'm happy to
report that life is good and music continues to treat me well. Never a
dull moment! My students manage to keep me hopping!
Here's my story.....part of it, anyway....
I'm a musician. I first started loving music when my dad would play the ukulele around the campfire when I was a kid, then I took a couple years of piano lessons when I was 8. That silly teacher of mine wouldn’t give me songs that I wanted to learn, so I fired her two years later. I still played though, and picked up my first guitar at 14. My brother gave it to me one day, I think he was cleaning out his closet. It was the oddest looking thing, yellow and black tiger striped, but it worked fine and I gave it a paint job after about a month, three big stripes, red, white and blue. Very Fourteen. That might have been some of the artist in me coming through at an early age - I eventually went to college and got a Bachelors in Art.
My teen years were filled with hours of guitar playing daily, and lots at the piano too. I was able to use the classical training I’d gotten from lessons, it just sort of stuck in my brain. Guitar was a breeze. I never took a lesson but sat in my bedroom and learned Dylan’s entire “Blonde on Blonde” album using the book and the LP. Remember those? Long gone now, I wonder what I did with the whole stack I had! Steve Miller, Beatles, Joni Mitchell, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Fleetwood Mac, CSNY, Neil Young, Eagles, all those and you probably know the rest.
I was born in North Hollywood, 1954. It was early one October morning when I popped into the world there in Southern California where I was raised until I left in 1972 to finish my college education at Sonoma State University. I went to San Diego for a year after I graduated, worked as a graphic designer, then left again in 1978 for the mountains of Idaho with the guy I was in love with who wanted to build a log cabin. Ok, this is going to be a very long story, so I’ll spare you the details. You get the idea. We ended up building that log cabin, living in it for 12 years, then leaving the north and heading down to the Arizona desert. I lost the same man to a tragic incident, so I went back to Southern California to live near my family for a few years until I got on my feet. I’ve just recently relocated to Portland, Oregon, with my new love and recording engineer, the designer of Flying Dog Studio. Whew, is that my whole life in one paragraph? I’m amazed I managed to spit it all out that quickly.
You can stop reading now if you'd like, the rest is just the details. I'll try not to over-do it, but I am getting ready to write a book, so look out! I may use this as practice.
There’s so much in between the lines of all I’ve written so far, but I guess I’ll try to focus on my musicianship here for awhile. Piano at 8, guitar at 14, and I’ve always been a singer. I remember how honored I was in 4th grade to be asked to sing in the 6th grade choir. What a feeling that was - I guess I was just loud, who knows if I was really any good or not!
I didn’t do much music in public until I was 21, when I was hired at a place called Rosie’s Cantina in Sonoma County. I was so terribly nervous, I can’t begin to tell you. But the owner liked me I guess, because he hired me for a full year, to perform every Friday night in the lounge. It wasn’t much of the Big Time, but I sure enjoyed the stage, that is, once I was able to stop hiding my face underneath all of my long hair. That’s what it’s there for, right? I still can't imagine ever cutting it short.
During my college years I was a member of a really cool band with a few guys from the Santa Rosa area. We called ourselves “Sweet Nothin’” and we played some great acoustic songs with 3-part harmonies. We played several gigs, lasted just over a year as a band, which was mostly my fault. I didn’t really know how to keep a band together….maybe I still don’t!
The next big musical adventure was in Point Arena at a recording studio that was built on a 100 year old homestead atop a mountain overlooking the ocean. What a fabulous view! We worked with a group of people and put out some original tapes that aired on some Bay Area radio stations, but the project folded in about a year. Is that the magic number or something? Oh, one of Steely Dan's drummers Jimmy Hodder came to the studio to record on occasion. Quite a guy.
After moving to Sandpoint, Idaho in 1983, I ventured out on a solo project again, until we formed a band or two (or ten) over the 12 years we were there. Supply Train lasted a year or two, Limits of Tyme lasted almost three, surprise! Supply Train went through at least 4 bass players, but we sure had some great gigs through the summer months and even built our own '50's show. We played classic rock and country rock, and were once Hank Thompson's back up band for a gig in Montana at a refurbished bowling alley. Oh dear me, what a time that was.
Limits of Tyme traveled all over the northwest and played the B circuit, sometimes C. The B circuit meant that the band didn't have an enormous light show, the C circuit (our bread and butter) were small, dingy clubs. Hey, everybody needs live music, the heck with the lights. We had some of the best times playing in some of the Indian Reservation clubs. "Chief" gave us a real dirty look when we first showed up to this one club, but after we filled his request to play "Born to be Wild", he calmed down and danced all night. The bar owners would always feed my dog, but rarely the band. My dog Dillon did a whopping trick show though, I guess the band was just not as exciting.
Someone once said that the band's name was "limiting our time" which may or may not have caused the band to break up after a few years. Our lead guitarist quit one day, and poof, that was the end of that. Oh, we did try auditioning several others, but no one was quite like our Skynnard-copy guy. Hit hat just didn't fit him anymore, I guess.
We hooked up with a few guys and made a band called The Pillars of Society for a while in Sandpoint. Talented bunch, but the band didn't progress. Too much distance in between rehearsal times and locations. Pillars of Society, ha. There were a few gigs that my drummer and I played as a duo, smaller clubs with less of a need for a full band. That was ok, some of those gigs were some of the best we ever had.
We started a brand new band with some (phony) bassist from Phoenix, Arizona who showed up with all his fancy equipment and a snow job as big as Mt. Everest. That band lasted 3 or 4 months, although it seemed like the eternal abyss. We actually did take that group to Phoenix, hired some fancy guitarist who played with Katrina and the Waves, but he got sick of the creepy bass player and bailed out. We called the band Fenix. It was funny at the time. But what wasn't funny is that we got fired from a New Year's Eve gig due to the bozo bass player's lack of ability. How embarrassing.
After Phoenix and Fenix, we found this group of people outside of the city there, and formed this way-cool ordeal of a band called Nocturnal Ranch. There was another gal who sang and played guitar, a bassist and my drummer. We thought we had a pretty good thing going for a while there. We hung out in this abandoned night club called The Cosmo, practiced at night, and played a few gigs before we all decided to bail out. I'm still not sure why, but it didn't last long at all. I played a few solo gigs here and there after that, not many.
The original Joan Berry Band started in 1996, we played gigs around the state of Arizona. Venturing out on an "all original" project was like running into a huge brick wall as far as booking gigs was concerned. Not many doors would open. We lost faith for awhile there. Not long after is when I lost my drummer, my husband, who took his life on a July night. I can't talk about it much. I did my 'talking' on "Song for a Drummer."
I went to San Diego in 1997 and started my teaching career. Somehow students just started showing up. They sure gave me something to concentrate on during my grieving period, I'll say that much...and before long I was teaching 40 kids a week, guitar, piano and voice. Thus began a new chapter in my life, I do believe I found my niche. It's amazing what comes down the pike.
It was the winter of 1998 when I met Jim from Blue Horse Music, Inc., and we began recording "Song for a Drummer." The initial tracking was cut short due to the acquisition of acute tendonitis in my wrists, so we didn't really get started until 6 months later when I regained the ability to play. We went after it then, recording once or twice a week, finishing the project 2 years later with all the bells and whistles. That was my first real experience with a big recording project, and thanks to Jim, I managed to complete it! Hours and hours of writing, listening, changing and rearranging. Whew.
The (new) Joan Berry Band was formed after the album, we played a few gigs here and there but never really got the project off the ground. My fault, I dropped the ball after being knocked around by some club managers who wouldn't give me the time of day. Oh, and that stupid woman at one of San Diego's newspapers, she blew me off like nobody's business. She was supposed to write a review for the album. Right. Anyway, I just didn't have the guts to continue pushing the band. There was a chip on my shoulder, for sure. Too much pain involved with trying to force my music into the world....there again, I'll have to write a book.
The band consisted of some of the greatest guys ever, Jim, Jamie, Terry and Andy, my roadie Fred and occasionally Sharon on the B3. I'm tellin' you, what a feeling it was having that caliber of musicians backing me up! I think my dream had come true once and for all, but ......... somehow it wasn't meant to be. Hmmmm.
Time went by, I met a man..... Brent became my best friend quickly. He built our Flying Dog Studio, and we got to work recording my solo project, "Just Enough." We were interrupted by the Cedar Fire in 2003, which nearly burned down the whole shootin' match....my god what a mess. Such devastation. Read my poem titled "After the Fire" on the Lyrics/Poems page. We got out just in time, with just enough stuff and our new puppy Timber.
We talked of moving north, building a place and living happily ever after. We made the move in the Fall of 2004, bought a house in Fall of '05, and here we go into '06.
More later......