Jerome Lee Word Press Archive Blog Site

Category: life

  • October’s Groove Release (Originally Posted on January 2, 2018)

    October’s Groove Release (Originally Posted on January 2, 2018)


    Growing up, as the months of each year rolled by, I began to take stock and pay attention to each month in particular. I actually learned to focus on each month of the year and prepare for the following month from the years that I spent in sports. Especially my time in organized sports in high school, each month held its own importance for the sport that I participated in.

    The spring months held their own sporting events that were particular to that time of year; particularly baseball, softball, lacrosse, tennis, and track and field. I played lacrosse for a few years during the spring months in my early high school years, but not as a junior or a senior student. The summer months were extensions of the previously mentioned sports, but I knew for me that as the autumn grew ever closer it was time to prepare for the upcoming football season. And autumn’s arrival found me playing football each year in high school, but I was also aware of the approaching winter season, which for me meant getting into wrestling shape. When the wrestling season was over it was the start of spring, and the cycle would start all over again for me and my high school organized sports life.


    When high school was over, I began to look at the months of the year in a different light while I was in the service. But at that time, I began to travel to places and countries that I had never visited before. Traveling to these different countries and nations began to show me how the people of those nations moved with the turning seasons of each year, and I began to see how people in different nations receive the changing seasons, month by month. It was fascinating to learn how the people of different nations reacted to each month of the year in their own style, and also at the pace of their own nation.


    After my time in service, my life in music took hold of me and the months of each year took on a new significance as a musician. As a musician, I would play events and festivals in several different nations during all of the seasons over the course of a year. I played bass at events and festivals that marked each yearly equinox, and events and festivals that celebrated milestones particular to a given nation. To do this as a musician showed me that the months of the year have their own certain rhythm, or pulse, with the people of the world. Winter months appear to have a slower pace to them than some the other months of the year, but they have their own pace, nonetheless. The other seasons of the year, spring, summer, and autumn appear to have a more upbeat pace to them, and I saw this apparent upbeat pace reflected in the events and festivals that I would perform at as a musician over the years.


    When I talk to people about the months of the year, they have their own favorite month; usually it is the month of their birth, but not always. For me that month is the month of October. While the other months of the year have their own pace and tempo, October has a pace and tempo all its own. Over the years that I have traveled the world as a musician, some of the most memorable events and festivals that I have performed in have been during the month of October. For many people and for many nations it is a time for harvest, and a gentle promise from the earth that the summer heat is behind them. It has been, and is, a time of joy and celebrations around the world for millions of people.


    Which brings me to the title of my latest single song release titled “October’s Groove”. This song is an up-tempo instrumental that is inspired by this special transitory month. After playing many autumn festivals and celebrations around the world as a musician, I wanted to pay tribute to this singular month.


    “October’s Groove” was a couple of years in the making. It began with the bass line that I had to teach to myself and learn from scratch. I have been working out some new fingering techniques on the bass, and learning to play them led to me finding the basic chord structure of the song. I had never played the bass like this before on a recording, this bass line that I came up with is new even to me. And that’s part of what makes music so exciting in my life, the opportunity to try something new and challenging on a new recording. This lower bass line part that I came up with makes this new song sound fresh and filled with the joy that I feel for the month of October.


    Solo wise, I decided to open up a bit during the solo section of the song and let the joy of the song give me a nice foundation to share my solo ideas. I left it open and free, with the joy intact, and I am very happy with the results.


    Percussion-wise on the song, I did the drums and some small, programmed percussion parts. But there is some sweet cowbell and hand splash cymbal work performed by my late friend Thomas “Block” Atkinson that compliment this song beautifully. Thank you for your music, Thomas, I miss you very much, Rest in Peace.


    It is my wish that you listen the new single of mine titled “October’s Groove” at your leisure and know that it was a joy for me to create for you. I believe that it is a song that will lift people’s spirits any time of the year. And the spirit of the magical month of October shall remain with this new groove for you! Enjoy…

  • Wealth (Originally posted on September 7, 2017)

    Wealth (Originally posted on September 7, 2017)

    Wealth. When people use the word wealth or refer to having wealth, they are most often referring to having a great deal of money. Or they are referring to having an abundance of material possessions like homes, automobiles, clothing, gold, paintings, and further expensive objects or items. Then there are people who cherish their stock market values and hold dear what their stock value means to them. Obviously when the stock prices rise to high levels, people feel even better about their own stock values, but when stocks fall to lower levels people feel less than enthusiastic about that type of occurrence as it directly relates to their own stock value.

    In many nations around the world, a person’s financial or material wealth is often used as a barometer to place themselves within the hierarchy of a nation’s social status. The more financial or material wealth that they have or accumulate, the better the social placement within the society in which they live. People often perceive their financial or material wealth, or lack of it, as something of a social marker among people within societies in many nations around our world.

    This attraction to financial and material wealth among societies within nations around the world has become stronger as human existence has evolved. It appears to have started very early on in the human experience, and history books are abundant with stories about those who have accumulated great financial and material wealth within societies over many millennia. This phenomenon of accumulating financial and material wealth only appears to continue as the human existence moves forward. There are even those people among nations of the world who are proposing that laws should be written that will penalize other people who do not, or cannot, accumulate what they deem as a sufficient amount of financial or material wealth during their lifetimes. And that to me, is a very frightening proposition to bestow upon people’s lives as they try to exist with the precious gift of life that they have received.

    But thankfully, wealth is not only measured in the abundance of money or material goods that one may possess. Wealth can and is also measured in many other ways that have nothing to do with the material goods or financial standing of an individual within a nation’s society. When we realize this, we look at the intangible gifts that a human being has and is shared among all of us during our lifetimes. We hear the kind, non-judgmental voice of someone speaking with us when we are feeling down that brings a soothing, healing effect to our psyche. We hear the singing voice from a person who is not materially well off soothe us, bring us joy, and produce a wonderful experience for us which then leaves us with a wonderful memory.

    We feel the touch of someone that also helps bring us to a better state of mind when we are in pain, whether emotionally or physically, and thankfully there are many volunteers working within organizations in many nations around the world who do this for us on a daily basis. Sometimes it is simply in the form of a sincere hug, or a hearty handshake, that can bring us to a more positive mental or physical state. We hear the music coming from a busker, or street musician, playing songs that take us away from the troubles or issues in our minds if only for a moment. It is difficult to place a monetary value on these things, in fact, I believe that it is impossible to do so.

    I personally have never been in a place of abundant financial wealth or material wealth during my lifetime. Instead, I have placed great value on the intangible skills and gifts I have been given as a human being in this world. I worked very hard on achieving a proficient level of making music for other people to receive. I have also worked very hard to achieve a proficient level of technical expertise in the various technical endeavors that I have undertaken within my lifetime. Because of the fact that I have not withheld the knowledge that I have accumulated during my life with these endeavors, and instead desired to share them with other people, has brought me to a state of inner wealth that can neither be described, nor taken from me.

    The inner wealth that I speak of comes through this sharing of experience that I have received with other people. While I was in the military service, after attaining a high level of technical excellence within my chosen technical vocation, I was able and more than willing to share this knowledge with other military service members who were working in the same technical vocation that I was. It was important to me to keep people safe at what they were doing, and to protect the service’s assets, and this allowed other people to remain safe as they worked within their service lives and careers. This in turn allowed my particular branch of military service to work to maintain peace in the world, which surprisingly, is what the military services want more than conflict with other nations or peoples.

    My inner wealth has also been realized in my many years as an audio and backline instrument professional. I have read many, many technical manuals, and I have had hundreds of experiences mixing audio on a professional level at music and corporate events, as well as working in musical instrument backline support for many music events. I took the time to help teach the personnel at a musical instrument backline company I was working with how to work with the MIDI protocol and how it applied itself with the use of professional digital keyboards, drum machines, sequencers, tone generators, and digital audio samplers. As an audio professional, I worked with another stagehand company teaching their young stagehands the safety and workings of audio devices and audio apparatus they would be working with. This led to me writing my own basic audio connector course that covers the most commonly used audio connectors in the world. I have shared the different sections of my audio connector course with the audio stagehands that I have worked with over the last few years at no cost to them.

    The inner wealth that I possess as a musician has also had a positive effect on other people around the world. I have been fortunate to have been able to be a music teacher to other musicians in my lifetime, and I have been able to have done this on the islands and continents that make up our beautiful planet. To me, teaching music is something very special to share with other people who also wish to share their own music with others. And no, I did not accumulate great financial or material wealth by doing so, but I maintain the belief that having done so cannot have a monetary value placed upon it.

    There have been some gentle reminders bestowed upon me by those with great financial or material wealth who have attended some of the music shows and music events that I have participated in over several decades. Some of these people have spoken to me after a music show or music event is over and have relayed the fact to me that while they do possess great financial or material wealth, they cannot express themselves musically as I do. And sometimes, they have mentioned the fact that they wished that they had continued their music lessons on their chosen instrument as a child, so that as an adult they could have been able to express themselves musically as I just did in their presence. Having people of great financial and material stature share those kinds of personal thoughts with me has always been a reminder to me of the actual intangible wealth that I possess, and how special of a gift it is to have.

    The fact is, when it comes to inner wealth, I know that I am not the only person who feels this way about myself. Thankfully, there are millions of other people out there around our world living the human experience who do not possess great financial or material wealth, but their inner wealth and what they share with the people of our world cannot have a monetary value placed upon it, ever.

    Knowing the difference between having financial or material wealth, and realizing one’s own inner wealth and gifts, is truly where the treasure of the human experience resides. So, know that you are truly wealthy, from the inside, each and every day of your life.

  • Radio (Originally posted on July 31, 2017)

    Radio (Originally posted on July 31, 2017)

    Radio. That word to describe the invisible transmission of radio frequencies through the air, from a transmitting device to a receiving device. That word was once very new on the lips of people around the world, most notably in the second half of the 19th century. In America, new companies sprang up and used the word ‘radio’ often, in a way to inform the public that they were part of the new emerging trend sweeping the nation and to attract new customers to their businesses. Back around the turn of the 19th century to the 20th century when radio was new to the general public, there were no morning drive DJs, no overnight soft music shows or anything of the sort.

    In fact, back during those times Morse Code was often used to communicate with listeners. During the run up to World War I, the US government was fearful of many things, so one of the things that they did was to shut down many foreign owned radio stations that were transmitting in Morse Code in foreign languages. It showed the power of the new nascent radio medium, and it was a sign of things to come for societies not only in the US, but worldwide.

    Fast forward several decades and soon millions of people were enjoying the radio medium. Radio used to be one of the most important ways to get news or sports, to hear new music or to hear plays or shows when they were first aired. It remained a first alert system for emergencies of all kinds to warn people to get out of harm’s way of impending threatening situations. Radio was a masterstroke of an invention, and it stirred people in ways that were not imagined before its invention.

    When I came into this world and learned as a very young child what radio was, I was absolutely fascinated with it. Being so young, it was like magic to have someone turn a radio on, start listening to music, and not see anything entering or exiting the device at all. It just floored me at how something like that could actually work. When I got a little older, in my early teens, I knew and felt the feeling of celebrity associated with the people well known in radio; certainly, the musicians who I heard play and sing all of this great music, but also the DJs that I heard who announced and described the music in many different emotional tones, tones that often matched the style of music that they played.

    As a teenager I had begun to associate getting one’s music played on a radio station as being something very special. And I still do today. For me, to have any of my works played by a radio station programmer or DJ evokes a warm, special feeling that runs very deep within me. But back when I was younger, I celebrated the local or regional musicians and singers who received radio airplay as it was quite a powerful thing to happen to one’s career.

    Growing up, so many of my family and friends listened to the radio, and I did too. There was plenty of music to listen to, and often times the message in the music coming from the radio reflected the times that we were living in. There were many who sang out about injustice in society, and those songs were hit songs to the people and were not about what the chart position said, or even if the song was on a chart at all. Music on the radio gave many people the feeling of being “up with the times”, it was what was talked about at get-togethers, parties, and most places where folks would gather.

    As I grew into my late teens and my early 20’s, I began to feel like I had put in enough time with my chosen instrument, the bass, to play on a recording that would be suitable for radio airplay. When I lived in Japan, I was told that some of the performances that I had taken part in with music bands were broadcast on some of the local stations near the area of the shows that we did. I wished that I had heard any of those broadcasts, and while I didn’t, I was very glad to know that the music I was a part of had been broadcast out to the public. Knowing that this radio airplay had taken place for me in a foreign country made me absolutely tingle inside. A great feeling indeed.

    Later on in my later 20’s and my early 30’s during my days of living in Los Angeles found me playing with some really good original bands. I loved being a part of an original band’s sound, it is very difficult to describe how that feels, how coming up with such a singular sound is achieved. The effort to make that happen did pay off for those bands as they did garner airplay in the Los Angeles area. To hear the music I’d helped make being played over the air on some of the big market radio stations in Los Angeles during the late 1980’s was a marvel to me. I felt so great when I heard the music from those bands I was in being played on the radio. It was at that point in my life that I began to want to create my own music with the hopes of having it air on the radio. A feeling inside me wanted me to continue the journey of creating the best music that I could and have it suitable for radio airplay.

    My interest in radio had also become very strong on a personal level, and I wanted to use my own voice to announce and describe to the music listeners what they were about to hear. So, I answered an ad to work as a DJ at KCLA FM in Los Angeles in 1993, auditioned, was selected, and began to air my own half hour radio show titled “Jerome Lee’s Tuneful Mix”. I aired that show for about a year, and it was one of the best things that I could have done with my life. The need for music is great when you are an on-air DJ, so it taught me how important having a large selection of music was to maintain a radio show of any size, and my show aired just once a week. Having this experience allowed me to understand better what the people who were running a radio station were thinking.

    After I had made my move to Europe, and settled in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, I met and worked with more bands that also garnered radio airplay as a reward for their musical efforts. And my own personal intentions of creating the best music that I could was very intense inside me. When the situation lined itself up for me to have the opportunity to record my own music, I jumped at that chance and took it. The time and effort that I put in to make my first solo artist recording was worth it, as it led to me having my first on air artist interview with a terrestrial radio station DJ in Amsterdam in 2003, something I will never forget. Again, a major first in my musical life happens in a foreign country, and once again through the medium of radio.

    Returning to the US to live saw me in my mid 40’s, and I had a new CD in tow that I was happy with. And by the early to mid 2000’s, the internet had begun to make its way into people’s lives and change how they communicated with the world. Radio was right there when this enormous change in society began to take place. Now, not only could a person listen to local or regional radio on the internet, but one could listen to internet radio stations on several continents around the planet. This thought struck a nerve in me with the possibilities that it presented. It meant that my emerging radio marketing plan could be centered around using the internet as a platform to have my music heard on internet radio stations not only on a local or regional level, but on a truly worldwide scale.

    Once I embarked upon my internet radio marketing campaign in 2005, it set off a motion that still carries forward to this day. My marketing efforts have garnered airplay on internet radio stations from Adelaide to the Azores and more. I have worked with many internet radio station programmers that were once a part of the giant Live365 network of internet radio station operators who aired my music, they were truly wonderful people to associate with.

    Fast forward to the year 2017, and the efforts of my internet radio campaign have garnered my first on air artist spotlight interview ever in the US! This happened because of the great internet radio station programmers and DJs who cater to independent musicians and artists like me. I have been thankful to see this paradigm shift grow on the internet, to see so many internet radio stations who cater to independent artists. This has been a very fortunate change for musicians and artists; it increases the chances of their works being heard by many more new listeners.

    While terrestrial radio is ever changing (and even disappearing) in countries around the world, it appears that internet radio has found a home and looks to be with us all for the long run. I am thankful to be a part of it, and I will continue to release the best music that I can and continue to offer it for internet radio airplay. And if you are an artist/musician, I hope you do too.

  • Working With Women (Originally posted on May 15, 2017)

    Working With Women (Originally posted on May 15, 2017)

      I feel that I am lucky to have experienced working alongside girls and women starting at an early age. I discovered this through being a musician when I was a little boy. It occurred to me at a young age that musical instruments are played by both genders; there is no preference by the instrument whether a male or female is playing it. Playing music in the school orchestras in elementary, junior high and high school showed me that one must practice no matter their gender in order to become proficient on an instrument. I had great experiences playing good music with the boys and girls at the schools I attended, and it taught me that one’s gender is not significant in achieving good tone on a musical instrument.

      While I was in the military service, there were not very many women in the specialty that I chose to undertake. It was dominated by men when it came to doing the work that I was involved in. But women were a part of what I did back then in the same specialty, and I do not remember me ever being unkind to them. We helped each other cover each objective equally; each task and mission was completed with a sense of teamwork and team spirit. But in the end, I worked with a majority of men during my service career.

      When I returned to civilian life, I went heavily into the entertainment business in Los Angeles and its many facets and specialties. I chose to remain a bass player first, but I was also very interested in working in professional audio. When I began working in film postproduction audio, I discovered many women working in the film industry. They did everything that the men did; audio postproduction, film editing, automated dialog replacement (ADR), Foley, and more. I enjoyed hearing their stories and I listened when they spoke of their experiences working alongside men in the industry. They told me that there were some gender issues that they faced with men from time to time, but it only appeared with men who felt that they did not belong or could not learn the techniques required by film makers to come up with a proper finished product. I saw that this view by men was inappropriate, and the finished film products involving women were equal to and sometimes better than what the men were doing.

      I learned as much as I could from both men and women when I worked in the film industry. There was a woman who would visit the audio postproduction studio that I was working in, and she gave me some great tips about how to achieve great sounding audio for the projects I was working on. She had spent a lot of time in some of the top studios in Los Angeles working with some of the top artists of the day, including the popular group Supertramp. I was very impressed with her, and I took note of how well she could hear things as she had what we call in professional audio a “golden set of ears”. She was very kind to me, and she told me some of the rules that she lived by as a female audio engineer. One thing that she learned was that she should never wear a skirt or dress to work in the studio with men. She told me that the work would not get done in a timely fashion because the men would be staring at her legs while working at the console instead of concentrating on the music that they were mixing. She told me that it was much better for her to always wear pants to work in the studio with men, and the work was better coming out of the studio from doing just that.

      When I left the film industry I returned to playing the bass guitar full time. Women were in many of the bands that I played music for, and I was able to approach them as the professionals that they were. The music always came first while I played in those Los Angeles based bands; it was the sound of each band that mattered to the public. The women in those bands were an integral part of the songwriting and the sound of each of them. We worked together to achieve a common goal, to hopefully garner a good degree of success from what we were producing for people. It was hard work, and sometimes things got bumpy along the way. But we stayed together as professionals for as long as we could, and I have fond memories of those days in Los Angeles with those bands.

      Fast forward some years later, I found myself working in professional audio and mixing high level corporate events and music shows in Las Vegas, Nevada. By this time, there were many more women working in the entertainment industry in all of its important positions. I have met female production managers and coordinators, master electricians, high riggers, forklift drivers, lighting specialists and audio engineers in my tenure. I can say that it has been a good experience working with them, and listening to them as well. Sometimes they would speak to me about the issues that they would encounter with men who thought that they did not belong, but it did not deter them from doing the work that they loved. Once again, what I do as an audio engineer is not gender specific. Both men and women produce great audio around the world for people, and audio itself does not concern itself with which gender is controlling it.

      I have had a female assistant in several of the shows that I have done audio mixes for in Las Vegas over the last ten years. I have taken the time to deepen my own knowledge about the science and the inner workings of professional audio during that time. I created a basic audio connector course that covers the most commonly used audio connectors on all of the earth’s continents to inform people who are interested in working with audio on a professional level. I have found that many people are not completely informed about the audio connectors used in the industry, so I wanted to impart this important information to them. The women I have worked with were interested in learning more about professional audio, and when they requested it, I made sure that I sent them information in the form of sections from my basic audio connector course so that they can have this information for their lifetimes.

      One woman in particular, who is a professional lighting engineer here in Las Vegas, has been a joy for me to work with. We have both been assigned to many of the same events over the last few years. She builds lighting design often from scratch at each event, but sometimes there is a protocol that the event client wishes to see during the show. We have done events at the highest level for clients here, and she has had no issues with what needed to be done. She is a true professional lighting engineer, and she is in high demand with several event clients and music groups. I remember a music event that we did together a couple of years ago for the band Puddle Of Mudd at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino. My work at that show was the position of audio monitor engineer. The band’s management did not assign a lighting scheme to her, and she said to me that she would let the band’s music dictate the lighting for the show. She had heard the band before, so she had an idea of the music that they would play. As a result, the band looked great on stage during the show. When I look at the YouTube videos posted of the band’s performance, it looks great and it will not occur to the viewer that the lighting engineer for their performance was female. Because being a lighting engineer is also not gender specific, both men and women are very good at performing this task.

      There are some other women who work in audio here in Las Vegas that I have met who are very interested in the craft. I like working with them, and they only want to do the very best that they can at every event. When they have questions for me about audio, I always answer them to the best of my ability. They have asked me about the audio connectors that audio professionals use around the world, and I have sent them sections of my basic audio connector course to help further their knowledge. Since they are a bit younger than me, I consider them to be a part of the future of professional audio engineers. I know that they will do a great job in audio because they have a real love for it; they care that each event sounds as good as it can.

      While I was setting up the audio for Caterpillar at the Construction Expo 2017 at the Las Vegas Convention Center earlier this year, I met a woman who worked for the local union here who was a forklift driver. We spoke for a while, and she let me know that she had been fully accepted by her colleagues both male and female. She said that there were some tasks involving physical strength that she and other women were challenged with; she said to me that since women are physically different than men, she would seek assistance from men to perform some tasks that she needed assistance with. But beyond that, both men and women depended on her to perform her tasks without any assistance. She was kind to me and gave me some of the candy that she carried with her to help keep me going. I thanked her and let her know that I was working on writing about my experiences working with women in our industry.

      In retrospect, again I am glad that I learned at an early age that women can and do perform well playing musical instruments and performing the technical tasks involved in entertainment industry events. It is my hope that women will continue to be accepted by men in the entertainment industry, and that there will be more women working within the industry in the future. After all, the tasks and skills required in the many technical disciplines that make events a success are not gender specific and are open to all who are interested no matter the person’s gender. Thank you, ladies.

    Here I am working with lighting engineer Angela Carlson for the UNLVino 40th Anniversary celebration at the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Brain Center in Las Vegas, Nevada April 2014
    I did the stage audio monitor mix for the band Puddle of Mudd with Angela Carlson as the lighting engineer at the Hard Rock Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada July 2015
    Here I am working with Anne Freeman during a video shoot for the single “Rainbow Pirates” from the Ghost Embrace CD in Inglewood, Colorado May 2013
    The group Ghost Embrace and the video for their single song titled “Rainbow Pirates” performed in Inglewood, Colorado May 2013
  • Los Angeles Uprising and Riots – 25 Years Later (Originally posted on April 30, 2017)

    Los Angeles Uprising and Riots – 25 Years Later (Originally posted on April 30, 2017)

      This week marks the 25th anniversary of the Los Angeles, California riots, although many called it a rebellion or an uprising. I was living there when it happened. And yes, buildings very nearby my residence were set on fire, and yes, it was a bit unsettling for me and my roommate. I am glad to have lived through it, and what I experienced was something that I hope other people never have to go through. Again, it is a rather unsettling experience.

      Living in Los Angeles, California in the mid to late 1980’s as a single African American male was an absolute challenge, and an absolute challenge for me too. I drove a car back in those days; I don’t own one now even though I maintain a current driver’s license, but I did drive back then. And it was a real challenge to constantly encounter the local law enforcement stopping me often while I drove. It got to a point for me to consider not owning an automobile anymore; it just didn’t seem worth the hassle that I was going through with the local police. But I wasn’t the only one, and this built in a strange mental occurrence to my thinking about what this was and why it kept happening to me. And knowing that I wasn’t the only one, I saw my city become more agitated and aggressive toward each other.

      And then, in the early 1990’s there was an African American man who was being beaten by police after being finally being stopped following a high-speed freeway chase that ended on a residential neighborhood street. The driver of the car, an African American man, was defensive toward police after exiting his car, and the police physically beat him on the spot. A nearby resident across the street from the scene captured this police beating on his video camera, and the video was shown on the local news, which quickly went to national news, which quickly went to worldwide news. The video was stunning to watch, and it affected people everywhere. Afterward in Los Angeles, many of the people wanted to feel a sense of justice for this beaten man. But the courts and their verdicts did not assign quilt to the police involved, and the news of the verdict sent many of the people of the city into exploding emotions of anger and fear.

      My roommate was at work that day in Hollywood, we both worked at the same place. I was off from work that day, the day when the riot began. I was looking at the local news on television; I was appalled at what I saw, but I knew why so many people were so angry with the verdict. It wasn’t the verdict itself that made so many people react in anger; it had also been the many decades of turmoil that people of color and the city officials and departments had with each other that saw no sign of ever having an equitable existence with each other. My roommate called me at home on the phone and asked me to come and pick her up from work that day, and soon. I said of course, and while I had been watching the local news on television that morning, I had not yet been outside the house. I got in my car and drove down my short street to the main street arteries to turn south. When I made my turn and headed south, I was met with one of the most astonishingly awful views that I have ever witnessed. The entire sky to the south was black with smoke from building fires; it was as though there were the most menacing storm clouds that one could imagine were upon you. It was an absolute spectacle to see; it brought the reality of the anger being expressed by so many people into a sharp focus for me.

      I drove a bit south and then turned right and headed west on the street toward where my roommate and I worked. It was surreal, to have the sky so dark from the smoke of burning buildings on my left, and a still clear sky on my right. I arrived at the place we worked, and I went inside and found my roommate and tried to tell her we were about to see outside. She had not been outside yet, and when we got into my car and headed east back to the house, she too was astonished at what she saw when she looked south. The city was on fire, and there was no doubt about it in our minds. We both began to talk and plan on preparing for what might happen over the next few hours or even days at that point. We both wanted to live through this horrible event indeed.

      The violence and rioting did reach our neighborhood the next night, and the nights after that too. At one point, we needed food supplies in the house, so during one afternoon I volunteered to go out and get us some food. It was a fairly short walk around the corner from our house in Hollywood to get to a large supermarket at an intersection of two main city avenues. I walked across the intersection to where the supermarket was, and it looked strange.

      The employees had stacked up many pallets of canned goods up against the front windows of the store, and the windows were very large and went very high up on the building. It was eerie to say the least, to not be able to enter the store immediately; there were employees and guards at the narrowed front entrance to the store that spoke to every person before they could enter. When they spoke to me, they told me that in case the large front store windows were broken out by the rioting, people and goods would receive lees damage from the stacked pallets of cans. The inside of the store was mostly dark; it was strange to see it like that. The employees stressed that we get in and get out of the store as quickly as possible as it could close at any second. It was probably the strangest shopping experience that I have had, trying to get items in a large, darkened supermarket as fast as I could. When I saw the faces of the other shoppers in the store as I shopped, I did see some panicked looks on some of them. Again, it was a surreal experience.

      Walking back home with the food, I witnessed all manner of law enforcement vehicles and Army vehicles on the streets. It looked like a war zone to say the least out on the streets where I lived during the riots. One night, a row of stores was set on fire just on the other side of the property where I and my roommate lived. As bad as that was, one of the stores was a shoe store that was going up in flames, and the thick black smoke came and settled on our house, and the houses around us. We lived in the small old style Hollywood cabanas, not very big, but two people could live there just fine. There were four of these cabana-type dwellings that stood alone but close-by ours. And just on the other sides of the cabanas were the stores, including the shoe store. The smoke from the fires were so thick at one point, we had to close up all the windows of the house to protect ourselves. I and my roommate went outside of our house when the smoke became very thick and noticed burning debris and sparks landing on the roof of our home from the stores on fire next to our property.

      Thankfully, after a long while we did finally hear the fire department arrive and deal with the fires next to our property. All of the little cabana-type homes we were living in survived the unsettling event. But the riots in Los Angeles continued on for a couple of more days, it was a very intense time. Me and my roommate stayed at home for a few days, and watched things unfold on the local news on television. We watched and I was personally astonished to see the auto parts store that I went to for parts for my car looted during the daytime, caught on one of the many camera views captured from a news helicopter, and then watch it be set alight that same evening and burn brightly in fire, again with a camera view captured from a helicopter. After the riots were declared officially over, I took a walk around my Hollywood neighborhood and found so much destruction and burned-out buildings. Some of these burned-out buildings were places that I used to shop at, but no more. So much hit me emotionally during that time; there was so much negativity among so many people living in the city at that point.

      I had moved to Los Angeles to share the musicality that I possessed with other great musicians there, and to share my technical experience with the great technicians there as well. I think that I accomplished this on some levels, and I was glad to interact with the many different people from all strata to accomplish some really great things in the entertainment business. While we did these things together, it was never about the color of our skin, it was always about the art that we were trying to make and the technology that we used to make things brilliant and joyful for people.

      I am glad to have survived what I will call the Los Angeles uprising, because that is what it was in the end to me. Certainly, it was the sense of so many people of color’s anger rising up, but it was also the sense of people of color rising up for hope to change relations between people in not only the city, but relations between people in the world for the better. Let us all hope for a brighter future and let us hope that there will never be another level of negativity expressed by so many people in a place known as the City of Angels.

    An in-depth and excellent documentary about the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Some scenes may be intense for young or sensitive viewers.
  • Sonny Griffin (Originally posted on December 12, 2016)

    Sonny Griffin (Originally posted on December 12, 2016)

      About a year or so after my arrival in the city of Amsterdam, The Netherlands in the mid-1990’s, as a bass player I found myself meeting quite a few very fine musicians, singers, and artists who populated the city. With me going to so many of the open mic and open jam nights the city had on offer, I played music one evening with a singer/guitarist whom I actually met on stage; he was a Dutch man who introduced himself to me as Sonny Griffin.

      Sonny was playing and singing his own brand of R&B and Soul music, and he had a great and deep repertoire of songs to choose from as well. It turns out that he had booked a lot of gigs and shows, and he stayed busy. At first, I would only see him occasionally at the jam nights, but shortly thereafter he asked me to join his band as a bass player and singer for an upcoming show he had booked outside of Amsterdam. I accepted. I was ready to gig at that point; I had invested in a good bass amplifier built by the people at Hughes&Kettner; the model was called the BassKick 505. I liked how this bass amplifier delivered great sound for me with all of the artists that I played music with in The Netherlands, and later, a bit beyond its borders.

      Sonny picked me and my bass gear up in his van, and we set off on our first gig together. The gig itself was a simple one; it was a backyard house party where the band had a space already set up for it to play. I met my new band mates as we set up our gear, and Sonny was kind enough to introduce me to them all as we talked about which songs we were going to play together that evening. I liked a lot of things about Sonny early on, and one of the things that I liked about him was something I liked about myself; that we were not biased about which gender plays which instrument in a band. The drummer in the band that night was female and a fabulous player, we played soul, funk and r&b songs that kept people dancing for quite a while at that party.

      After the success of playing music at the party that evening, Sonny asked me if he could call on me to do a few more gigs and shows with him that he had coming up. I said yes, as Sonny was a marvelous singer who played some good guitar, mostly rhythm guitar in his band. This began a musical relationship that was to last for all of my remaining years of living in The Netherlands, and a musical relationship that I will always cherish.

      Sonny and I worked on a lot of songs together, and he also wrote good amount of his own original songs. I enjoyed playing his original songs with his band; a couple of them were good dance floor songs that he would weave into the band’s sets among the popular cover songs that he would play. Sonny liked the idea of me being in his band also for my vocal ability; when it was time for him to have a break after singing so many songs, I would step up to the microphone and take over the lead vocal duties for a few songs. People who attended the many events that we played at always liked my voice and my native African American accent while I sang. This added a nice feature to Sonny’s band, and he was already popular and had many Dutch fans that followed him and attended his shows.

      After a year or so of playing shows with Sonny’s band, I then asked him to take a role as a rhythm guitarist and singer in my own band, Jerome Lee City. He said yes, and I became a fortunate musician to have him play many of the shows that Jerome Lee City played in the Amsterdam area up until the time I left the city in 2003. Sonny would find gigs all over Holland, and at venues that were always fun to perform at. During the late 1990’s, he had us perform as a band at some really nice clubs, pubs, and a gig at an actual castle in the south of Holland, near Maastricht, that was just great. Towns and cities named Eindhoven, Venlo, Tilburg, Breda, Utrecht, Nijmegen, Amersfoort, Zwolle, The Hague, Rotterdam and more were included in the places we did shows, it was a great experience for me to visit so many places with Sonny in Holland.

      A high point in our collaboration was the assembling by Sonny of a special band of some popular professional Dutch musicians to back him up for a very special concert series he had created called “Soul Shadows”. The Soul Shadows series came about after Sonny, and I had been playing music together for close to four years. I was elated and excited to be chosen by Sonny to be his bass player for the show series. He was inspired to use the name Soul Shadows in celebration of the original music of the same name by The Crusaders. Hey, The Crusaders influenced us all at some point! I thought it was a great title for the show series indeed.

      Sonny was a great organizer, manager and band coordinator all wrapped into one person. He had worked out dates for the Soul Shadows series at a nice theater in Amsterdam called Theater De Krakeling. From what I understood, Theater De Krakeling was mostly used for children’s plays and shows; the theater staff was very open to the children of the community which is why it had so many events in the theater for them. But they also held events there for adult attendance as well. The Soul Shadows concert series by Sonny Griffin was scheduled during the year 2000 and had four total performances at the theater; one performance about every three months during that year.

      The musicians that Sonny chose for the Soul Shadows concert series at Theater De Krakeling were stellar musicians without a doubt. They could all play solo parts on their chosen instruments like mad; they were all seasoned pros for real. Sonny asked all of us at the very first band rehearsal to not go off too heavily as players, you know, not to take away from the groove that we establish for each song. Sonny wanted a true soul and r&b feel to come from us; he wanted the way we felt inside about those genres to emerge during each concert. I was the lone American in the band, and the guys in the band asked me early on if it was alright for them to speak in their native language, Dutch, while we were all together at rehearsals and shows. I told them that it was quite alright to do that, I was constantly working to get my Dutch language skills going a bit better anyway. They told jokes and had a good time and made me feel comfortable.

      Finally, the first Soul Shadows concert performance by Sonny Griffin at Theater De Krakeling took place in April of 2000. Setting up for the show, I noticed the serious amount of live recording gear that was brought into the theater for us to record with. In Holland, I learned that the major media broadcast centers were mostly in or near the towns of Hilversum and Bussum. There were also quite a few recording studios located in and around those towns. Sonny eventually mixed and mastered the live concert CD at a studio in a town in that area called Kortenhoef. Two guys that I met named Pieter and Menno took charge of the live recording process for all of our concerts at the theater. They brought in a multitude of microphones, direct boxes and cables. And for a couple of the concerts at the theater, they brought in a Sony PCM-3348 digital reel-to-reel recorder to capture everything on. I thought that was really cool, and I did get to listen back to a little bit of the raw live recording over a pair of headphones just after a show, it sounded really great.

      After the Soul Shadows concert series was complete in 2000, Sonny asked me to do more duo gigs with him. He had taken a bit of a break at that time from having live bands so often, but he did not want his gig contacts to diminish. He had done a fair number of solo gigs, but he said he found it more fun to do more duo gigs. Again, I said yes, he didn’t have to ask me twice. We went out around Holland as a rhythm guitar and bass guitar duo, and both of us would sing. I was amazed yet again at the places and venues that we perform at. Sonny had a professional working relationship with an organization in Holland known as Center Parcs. Center Parcs was responsible for a large amount of public community recreational properties all over Holland, Germany, Belgium, France, and England, and booked many other entertainers at them.

      Living in Amsterdam puts one close to the water, Sonny once booked a duo gig for me and him on a nice sailing ship that was docked in the city harbor, and he also later booked a gig on a sailing ship for the Soul Shadows concert band during the annual Amsterdam event known as Sail Amsterdam.

      I will never forget my wonderful and positive experiences that I had with such a bright, warm, caring and intelligent soul as Sonny. He was a great friend, a great singer, a cool guitar player, and a great spirit. Sonny’s work and music can be found today on his official website, and there is more music to be found at his YouTube channel. Miss you Sonny and thank you always for being you!

    Sonny Griffin Official Website – https://www.sonnygriffin.nl/

    Sonny Griffin – Soul Shadows CD cover art, 2000
    Jerome Lee (left in photo) in concert with Sonny Griffin (center in photo) at Theater Krakeling, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 2000
    Sonny Griffin performing his “Soul Shadows” concert at Theater Krakeling, Amsterdam, NL 2000
    Sonny Griffin performing his “Soul Shadows” concert at Theater Krakeling, Amsterdam, NL 2000
    Jerome Lee playing his bass in concert for Sonny Griffin at Theater Krakeling, Amsterdam, NL 2000
    An official concert poster advertising the Soul Shadows concert series to be held at Theater Krakeling, Amsterdam, NL during the year 2000
    Jerome Lee and Sonny Griffin worked as a duo for several years in Amsterdam, NL – this poster for a Cafe 4 Fier performance in 2001