This is "road-magic music". Get in the car, pop it in and you're enjoying the ride.

11 MP3 Songs
FOLK: Folk Pop, POP: Beatles-pop

Show all album songs: Leap And The Net Will Appear Songs


Details:
My name is Sherry Lawson and Iâm a Late Bloomer. This may sound like an introduction to a 12-step group but being a late bloomer is something to be nurtured â¦not stopped. That is the message of this recording and my mission. Our motto is âItâs never too late to travel a new pathâ.
My story is not so different from millions of others in the world:
I fell in love with the Beatles at age 12 and my parents took me to see them when they performed in Kansas City. My first concert. But my interest in music started even before that British Invasion. Mom and Dad always had music around us. Happily escaping the farm and a small town, they loved all things modern and they loved to dance; both were very good at it. So early on I heard Elvis, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Perry Como, Frankie Laine, got to meet Brenda Lee at an auto show etc etc. Music was an important part of their lives and so mine. I loved to sing and was chosen to be in a small singing group in Jr. High School and attended summer music camp at that same time.
High School however, did nothing to develop these seemingly random events into an aspiration. In fact it wasnât until I had been married and divorced that I met a musician and spent time with his band that I realized this was something I wanted to do. This was challenging as I had a small child at that time and a series of men in my life who didnât want to work, leaving little time to pursue my new goal. I did what I could, though, and played in many bands part-time for very little money. A few years later I had the opportunity to be a flight attendant which broadened my horizons but left no time for music. When I quit flying I went back to music again, still playing âcoverâ songs in bands.
When my son went to college I moved to Atlanta and decided to take on the corporate world, once again putting music away. During my ladder climbing, on my 40th birthday I sang karaoke with a co-worker, Diane Otte, and my son, who was home from college for the summer, said we sounded good together. I asked her if she wanted to work some songs out. I had wanted to learn to play guitar so thatâs what we did. In a short time we were an acoustic duo called âDelilahâ and I wrote my first real song, âI Want my Heart Backâ. You can hear it on my website www.sherrylawsonplanet.com . Eight years later I had moved to Memphis, married my husband, Ed; moved back to Kansas City so he could go to chiropractic school; and while there, recorded my first CDâ¦.at age 48.
You may or may not be familiar with the recording industry and their views on age. I can tell you firsthand, they are not even nice about it. They are only looking for youngsters to âbreakâ. Of course, itâs not just that industry; they are representative of our countryâs view on age vs. worth. Where does that leave people like me? At 55 I have recorded my 2nd CD and writing a musical around the songs on my first CD. I canât wait for the world to wake-up and recognize my worth. Iâm going to show it to them.
I started a website www.latebloomerscan2.com to encourage my youth-challenged peers to go for their dreams also. Hopefully to give and get support; to thumb our noses at the corporate machine that tells us weâre too old to change our lives; to live our dreams. Iâm going forward and I have a feeling there are lots of wonderful, creative, contributors to society who are afraid to take that first step; who feel theyâre too old; who feel unsupported in taking their leap of faith.

Some notes on the songs:
Leapâ¦.the title track was written for my father-in-law when he retired and fits so many in a state of transition whether it be retirement, divorce or empty nest. Jim did such a beautiful job of interpreting the feel I wanted.

Born on Valentineâs Dayâ¦.this song was commissioned by a woman in California as a birthday gift for her daughter-in-law. I hadnât met her so I relied solely on my Muse and what I got was that she was an angel. Iâm really not one of those âangelâ people who have them all over their house etc. but I felt strongly that âangelâ had to be in the song. When I sent it to the woman she said it was perfect, she had always called her daughter-in-law her angel. Another interesting side-note on this one was that the daughter-in-law was deaf. Again, Jim picked up the âHootersâ (the band) feel I wanted for this one.

Nothing I Can Doâ¦.was dreamed. I woke up and tried to find some way to write it down or record it quickly but nothing worked so I went back to bed saying, âwell, if Iâm supposed to remember this, I willâ. In the dream Madonna was singing it, go figure. This is, sonically, one of the most beautiful songs on this CD in my opinion.

Talking to Myselfâ¦..this is a lot of our story isnât it? When parents or any authority figure tears down our self esteem, it can take a long time, or lots of analysis to bring it back. I hear Wynonna singing this, donât ask me why except that I understand she is a very metaphysical person and could totally do this one right.

Solitary Womanâ¦.my husband is a holistic doctor and one of his terminal patients liked my first CD and asked me to write something for her funeral. Wow. I didnât really know her so I asked her to write a few things about her life for me to work from. This is what came to me and Iâm still not sure if I was writing it for herâ¦or me..or all of us Solitary Women.

The Perfect Oneâ¦. My only son was married and I wrote this for him. Itâs not exactly âThe Ballad of John and Yokoâ but, like that song, it is some of their story. I didnât have it completed for their actual wedding (that Muse of mine has a mind of itâs own) so I sang âIn My Lifeâ (Beatles) at the wedding. My Dad (82 at the time) asked me if that was one I had written, bless his heart. This one feels like a long car ride song to me.

Old Coyote Songâ¦..another commissioned song, a birthday of a man I didnât know from a friend of mine. She wrote out some things about him on a bar napkin and my husband helped with some of the ideas. I added the last verse right before we recorded it to finish the story, so to speak. This may be my favorite on the CD.

Maiden, Mother, Croneâ¦.written for my mother-in-law on her 60th birthday or her âCroningâ. After I wrote it I realized how it fit my own mother and probably millions of other moms born at that time. Now we take for granted getting our own apartments and having our own lives before we marry. Not so then. Jim heard this as a kind of sit-around-a-campfire song so we kept it simple.

Find a Job You Loveâ¦.my kind husband wrote this on a ticket at a restaurant after some particularly bad service one night. I took it on as a challenge to write a âstory songâ, something I rarely do. I love the bass line in this one, stand-up of course.

A Man Named Johnâ¦.this song has a very long story to it that I tell when I perform it live. The Readerâs Digest version is that itâs about John Kennedy Jr.

Initiationâ¦â¦I have astral traveled twice in my life and it was very interesting. This is about that experience. Jim worked his magic on it.