The Past

Welcome to Red Out Loud.

I'm a red head. I'm loud in all areas, I talk too much, I write honest songs about personal situations (sometimes too honest) and I sing, LOUD, for the most part.

So I thought calling this Blog- "Red Out Loud" made perfect sense.

I actually started this blog over three months ago. I thought it would be a hoot to just chat to myself and whoever else stumbled upon this blog all about my life's trials and tribulations! Such trials and tribulations for the most part (as most blogs do) centered around boys, dating, parties and all sorts of other boring things.

I deleted it today.

Don't worry it is saved somewhere safe, so that if and when my life goes back to being that trivial (I also like to think of it as fun) I can repost them on a new and improved blog.

But now I want to blog about something else.

I am a singer. I write songs too, but I was born a singer. Most people who are singers talk about how they were singing from the day they were born. I don't remember if I sang when I was bron, I dont think people can actually remember that far back to tell you the truth, so I will skip that silly overused line and try to actually remember when I became aware of my voice.

I think that I always talked a lot and I for certain know I was quite opinionated, even before the words formed. I am also sure that mom and dad played loads of music for me as a baby. I also come from a family of entertainers on my father's side, my grandmother a dancer, her sister a singer, their brother a trumpet player. Music was there from the start. My earliest memories of singing though, I mean really singing and thinking "wow, I think I like this" probably go back to kindergarden or maybe the first grade. I had my first best friend around then, Rebecca. She would come over almost every day and we would parade around my parents living room listening to the record, yes it was actually a vinyl record, of Andrew Lloyd Webber's "The Phantom of the Opera."

Now, at this point in my life, and it is 20 years later, I am a rock singer, with influences that range from Carole King, Janis Joplin and Bonnie Raitt as a singer to Crosby Stills Nash and Young, Jackson Browne even James Taylor as a songwriter.

But then, that was it for me. BROADWAY MUSICALS! And in fact it stayed that way for about 15 years after that. My family moved to East Brunswick from Teaneck and my "living room musical" switched from the overplayed "Phantom of the Opera" to "The Secret Garden." Oh how I loved to sing the maid's songs. I never remember enjoying singing the ingenue roles I always remember loving the supporting characters, the belters, the big, brave bold songs. And I think it was with this musical that I realized I was not only singing, but I was singing well. Actually amazingly well for a girl of about 9 years old. My mother would cook away in the kitchen and I would sing, like no one was listening. Of course, I took breaks from my broadway song collection to sing more contemporary hits of the day, for example, I think Debbie Gibson's "Lost in Your Eyes" stood tall on that list!

My musical tastes did broaden eventually. Mostly thanks to the ever present family roadtrip to upstate New York to visit the grandparents, to ski lodges for family vacations, to the jersey shore! My father would play all sorts of music from his younger life- Carole King, Crosby Stills and Nash, The Eagles, James Taylor, The Beatles, Cat Stevens, Dan Folgerberg. Then one day he played a record he thought I might enjoy, told me, this woman could sing better then anyone else. Fact. Of course, my father only speaks in facts.

Barbra Streisand came to being in my world. I know it sounds strange and to some maybe embarassing to list Babs as one of my earliest music memories. But I won't lie (this is a blog after all), Barbra defined song to me. She sang, she hit notes I had never heard before and I just HAD to be able to sing like that. So I sang along, I imitated and I think that was the beginning of my technique. I embodied her, i memorized her songs, i figured out her sound, her voice placement, her level of passion and I emulated it.

Then there was the vocal stylings of Bette, Mariah, Ella even Celine that took over my heart. I still fancied myself a good broadway score to sing along to, but once I found out about these vocalists the challenge was on. I would sing like these people if it was the last thing I'd do. And I did. And I'm not tooting my horn, I could sound like any of the above listed singers. And for me the feeling of singing to such great heights isn't an explainable one. It felt right, it was who I was and it became what I wanted to be.

I did musicals, I sang at family get togethers, I got solos in the school choir, I took voice lessons, sang karaoke etc. and I was noticed for it all. Then at the age of 15 I think the most significant musical moment of my teenage years came about. My father bought me a stereo that had the capability of turning regular cd's into karaoke. The best part of this was that the stereo came with a microphone. It plugged right into the stereo and fit right into my hand. Immediately I began playing with this toy, spending hours at a time, night after night singing along to all my favorites. These were my most private musical moments. For many singing mostly involves performance, an audience, applause. And believe me, there is nothing like it. But this had none of that. This was just me, a microphone, artists who, at least back then, I loved deeply and my voice. And I just sang. I kept casettes (yes tapes) right by the stereo and recorded everything. It was my medicine, my therapy, my love.

I do hold dear to my heart the musicals I performed in highschool with my acting "troupe" and I do hold my experience at The Tisch School of the Arts close to my heart. Gaining admittance to the best musical theater program in the country was no small feat and I learned a great deal about theater, acting, music and life. I made wonderful friends and sang my heart out. But it doesnt stick out to me as the crux of my musical journey.

My voice at its best and most fulfilling (at least through childhood and my teen years) lies in that poor quality microphone, my shelves of Cd's, that karaoke stereo and the many hours I spent all alone with all of that, just singing. I remember after hours of singing all by myself I would wash up for bed, get under my covers and literally dream about how on earth I could make singing my life. It just had to be.

So no, my memory does not go back to the day I was born and the day I was born was certainly not the first moment I realized where my heart lay. I dont even think it was with The Phantom of the Opera or with The Secret Garden, though those musical are my first memory of attaching myself to music. It was the female vocalists I fell for and the karaoke Stereo that taught me how to sing just like them.

This is how music began for me. This was before it even occured to me that beyond song there was writing, I could write songs and then sing them, but that realization came later for me and only after I realized that the voice I had was not a permanent fixture, that it was fleeting and that it could be damaged, changed and lost forever. And that happened. When I was 21.

I woke up on the day of my college graduation party, ready to take over the world. I had my story all ready to tell to those guests asking me the dreaded question, what's next for you? I had a successful career at Tisch, though I was not cast in the roles I necessarily sought out at school, I had been a part of the exclusive industry night heald for seniors and I had scored myself an agent for theater and an agent for commercials. I was set. I was ready to audition, to work and to be what I assumed I always wanted to be. I had even found my place as a budding recording artist, having made demo after demo of original material with a producer I had found, I was on my way to fulfilling dreams of recording and singing like the greats I had always admired.

I got up, I got dressed for my party I went downstairs opened my mouth to speak and instead of my crystal clear speaking voice peaking through, a hard noticeable rough sound emerged, unexplainably. I assumed that I had laryngitis, not common for me, but I had been spending a lot of time out with friends celebrating our great graduation victory and assumed that it would be a temporary loss. 2 weeks later, it wasn't, 3 weeks later my first voice specialist put a tube down my throat and told me I had bumps on my vocal cords that would probably not go away without extensive therapy.

I had nodules. I would have to be quiet for weeks, I would not be able to go on my auditions and I would have to wait. WAIT. I am not a patient person, so waiting is a word I dont really like. I went into extensive therapy. Tried one therapist, Dr. Anat Keidar. Working with her was probably the worst thing I could have done towards my rehabilitation. Finding out that what had once, in my eyes, been an infallible instrument, was now damaged was enough to make wonder what I had done to deserve this, but she confirmed that. Not a word of encouragement not a word of reassurance. And so I stopped seeing her and for the most part ignored my problem. I stopped going on auditions, the style in my voice was long gone and in my small mind, probably gone for good.

But my non defeatist attitude told me, fuck it, if you cant sing like you used to, find another way. I decided....

I would write songs. So I did. And I found great writers to write with. And I wrote songs I could sing with this new strange voice of mine. I wrote with The Spin Doctors and other notables. I took a job in the music business working for Susan Blond Inc, started attending all of the right parties, continued to do damage to my voice, but continued to further my career as an artist all the same.

I started to write and found out that there had been all of these other past influences I had hardly recognized until that point. There was, as I mentioned earlier, CSNY, James Taylor, Carole King etc. whose writing I found myself emulating. I was thrilled. I had turned a curse into a blessing and quickly began to create a name for myself in the NYC music scene.

Since then my life has been my own music, my heart moved from the great singers I used to love, to great writers, to great blues singers, to unknown artists, to creating a community of songwriters right here in my own city. Theater was gone, technique for the most part, gone. Music was new for me all over again. And I ran with it. I played show after show, worked with one great person after the other, spent late nights out living a lifestyle every good rockstar would want to live. I worked in nightlife, i made my money, I made connections, I pushed forward and I was happy.

Recently I decided I needed to push further, my life needed to be my music, I had hit a major roadblock, gotten past it, I just turned 26 there was no more waiting. I quit my job, gave up my apartment, got ready to move home and go friendhop in LA, play as many shows as possible, I was going to do this, there was no reason my success had not reached a further point. I was ready to move full steam ahead.

Then I found out last week I had not escaped my voice problems, they were back and worse. My once infallible instrment was further damaged (after having healed significantly) a cyst had formed on vocal fold, and this time it was irreversible without surgery.

Here I am writing to you, a one way ticket to LA in my hand, my first LA show booked, managers, producers, lawyers all ready to work with me on my big push. And Im about to go silent for three months.

This is all I'll have to keep my thoughts on the outside of my brain if I can't speak them. So I hope you'll read, now that you know me, where I come from and what I've been through.

You know my past, now I head into my future with yet another curve ball. I had hoped to describe my musical journey to you, the shows I would play, the songs I would write, the success I would find, the friends I would meet along the way, life lived as ONLY an artist, FINALLY!

Nope, not yet! I have another stumbling block to climb over. And its going to be the hardest yet. There will be weeks of silence, months of rehab but I am not giving up and thankfull I will have you to listen to me! (or at least read me).

Oh- I promise this will be the longest entry of the blog....just thought I would update you on the last 26 yearsin the life of deena godman (t least musically) and to tell you the truth I have only brushed the surface....

Be back around soon! Hope to get some photos and video footage up here soon, once I figure out how that is done!

Good night to you all.....

xRed Out Loud