Al and Anna at the Argyle Association. Linda down with Lurgy. Last men standing.
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Last August Linda and I were at a jazz weekend in Perthshire, where at the end of the course I got the opportunity to stand up on stage and sing a Billie Holliday song with a real live jazz band, with a double bass and stuff. I was in heaven. To this day I don't know how I had the nerve to volunteer myself to do this. Never ever had I done anything like this before, in my wildest dreams. Well, the adrenaline rush took hours to wear off, and all the way home, motoring down the M90, I began composing "My Fantasy Blues Band", which later became my first song. Linda said to me "You know, it doesn't have to be a fantasy." An interesting juxtaposition of events, including the Edinburgh Jazz Summer School, and a week-long course in music production at the Academy of Music and Sound, had led up to this moment of epiphany. So that's how it all began: just a laugh to start with. Then suddenly, I was drawn into this weird creative vortex, and on an equinox
I only started writing and singing my songs last September: that's less than a year ago. Never having sung with a band before, I'm scared of forgetting my words or just totally freezing up. From time to time I step back in shock, and wonder what I've let myself in for. I reckon the key is preparation. I just hope there is enough time left before the Festival. It's hard enough to get the band together for a rehearsal, never mind a gig. Luckily the band members are all fantastic musicians and have fed in a lot of ideas to the final arrangements. The truth is, once I'm singing, I just love it. The songs were never intended to be funny: I always start trying to write something deep and meaningful, soulful and melodic. But somehow, they quickly turned into hysterically wacky pieces. I was obviously not meant to be a serious poet.
