The Sad Cycle

I recently learned from my mother that my father's dad was also a musician and that he was also an absentee parent to my father. My grandfather, "Vincent," was not around for his own son either. I didn't know that! Finding out about that bothered me and made me sad but it also made me understand a little better perhaps why my own father was not around for me either. Perhaps he simply repeated the sins of his own dad because he didn't know any better.

Writing "Artist on the Album" (the first track on my debut CD, No Expiration Date) was great therapy for me in terms of allowing me to create something good out of something bad. As the lyrics to the chorus states, "I never really knew him. He left when I was three. He needed to pursue his passion, so he left our family. Music was his mistress. His whole damn life, you see...the artist on the album was only my daddy." Not surprisingly, those words resonant a little more deeply now that I know my father experienced the same disappointment. I guess we have that in common.