Retro Ed - River of Life

I started out playing lead guitar and singing in garage bands with names like The Living Souls, Sonic Vibration and Spring Rain in the 60s and 70s playing mostly cover music by The Animals, Young Rascals, Lovin Spoonful, Troggs, Wilson Pickett, Paul Revere and the Raiders, Creedence Clearwater, Doors, Rolling Stones, Beatles, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Santana, the Eagles and Jimi Hendrix. While I loved those rock n roll days, my dream evolved from Rock star to becoming a singer-songwriter. In grade school I grew up listening to Elvis Presley, Rick Nelson and Marty Robins, and later while I was playing in the rock bands, I also listened to singer songwriters like Johnny Rivers, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Cat Stevens, James Taylor, Jackson Brown, Bob Seger, Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen, Van Morrison. Jimmy Buffett and blues greats from John Lee Hooker, Buddy Guy and BB King to Stevie Ray Vaughan. I wrote a half dozen songs about life, love, war and death in the late 60s and early 70s before I embarked on a 30-year career as a newspaper reporter, but I never stopped writing songs. I didn't write much in the 1980s, but in the in the 1990s I wrote another half dozen songs and started playing solo acoustic gigs playing mostly classic cover songs at bars and vineyards, where a classmate dubbed me Retro Ed. I escaped from my enslavement as a newspaper reporter in 2011 and cranked out so many new songs that I'd switched to playing all original songs at every gig since 2013 on. By the end of 20124 I'd completed more than 40 songs all about real life experiences and the people I got to know along the way. River of Life is my first professionally recorded CD featuring 14 songs ranging from 'My First Girlfriend,' originally written in 1967, to 'Rainbow,' originally written in 1969 about the hope that the Rainbow will bring back a sunny day and give us hope again. 'It's All Over Know' first written in 1970 is about heartbreak when you discover the woman you love is untrue, but you find the strength to move on. 'Love Found Us On Facebook,' written in 2010 is a true story of childhood friends who met on Facebook late in life and fell in love. 'Money Can't Love You Back,' written in 2014 is about a friend who loved money more than anything, but discovered too late that money can't love you back. 'Pendleton Nights,' written in 2014 is about what it felt like to grow up in Pendleton, Oregon, back in the 50s and 60s when stores on Main Street were filled with thriving family owned businesses and we all took care of each other and dreamed of good things to come. The title song, 'River of Life,' written in 2013 is about a man who has loved one woman after another but later in life finds himself alone and not sure if he is even capable of a deep love. Then a special woman comes into his life and reminds him he still can. Sometime I long to be in a rock band again and the musical experience that happens when four or five guys get together in a and contribute parts of their own souls to the group's creative process. We'll see what the future holds.