(update) Losing my uncle, bestfriend, and playing the Blues

[BluesPreacherCreighton]

Hello everyone,

it has been a while since I last wrote on here about my grief, and how I am dealing with the loss of my best friend, and my uncle. It has been a long story, and it has been time to make more decisions in life. 

October/November/December  

Well, it has now been a year since my best friend died, and it hit me bad when the date came to it, and I struggled. I cried, and I let my grades fall and began to isolate myself, and I deleted my facebook account, my music page, and my YouTube page. I was so down, I felt like I wasn't destined to be anything, and had lots of concerned friends, fans and family. I was supposed to play a show in October for a blues musician named Muruga Booker, and he was really nice and an ordained orthodox priest, and we sat and we talked about lots of things, which was different from the other acts i've played with. He cared so much, that he made me change my heart, and I agreed to do to the show, and he said he was going to record me for free, and I will post my album on here for you guys. I got back in contact with folks who I had said I was quitting music and they told me they were glad I was back and they were understanding and so I got some shows. 

 

I played the show, and I got on the stage, and played my own original Material, and they were impressed, and I felt happiness again. I got on the stage, and told them I was grateful for letting me do this and I told the crowd after my final song that I was struggling with school, grieving the loss of my best friend, and my uncle, and that I almost did not play the show. They were all so nice and I felt so good after. I began to realize music was the route I was going to go, and that it was what made me happy and I was not going to give up on none of it. 

 

One of the things  that happened to me in my time of not playing music was that I decided to expand my horizons more. I felt shut out in the blues world, and I have struggled with racism in the community, and have been told I would never be a good blues musician. It drove me to the point that I said I was going to take a break and find some other good music to explore. I started listening to old jazz and found love in the music of Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Glenn Miller, and more appreciation for Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway. I would listen to their records for hours and learned to love the sound, and wouldnt get on facebook.

 

Then, one day, out of the blue, I decided to listen to country music, which is actually ancestral music to me; my great grandma and her sibilings were supposed to be on the grand ole opry back in 1939, but they couldnt get a car ride there and I am related a man by marriage named "uncle" dave macon, who was an early grand ole opry star. I had been listening to Hank Williams Sr for sometime, and I decided to listen to his music, and I found solace in what he was singing about, and I began to love his music.Hank Sr's music struck a chord with my broken heart, and the stuff he sang about felt so much like what I had been through, and I read that he learned guitar from an old bluesman when he was a kid. 

 

I had never really heard the music of Hank Williams Jr, nor had i heard him talk about his life, and so I decided to do my own research. Hank Williams Jr lived a life of hell, he was brought up to be like his great father, to the point where he was taught to sing like him! it drove him mad because while he loved his dad, he wanted to be his own man and do his own songs. in 1975, he fell from the Ajax Mountain and he came back doing not just doing country, but mixing Blues, Rock n Roll, Gospel, Jazz, and he did everything his own way. I listened to him talk about his love for the blues, and then his own struggle with hecklers and haters, and how he stuck it to the Nashville music scene. I then felt a love, admiration, and massive respect for Hank Williams Jr. I dont care for politics, so I dont get mad at his views, I love his music. 

 

So, Hank Williams Sr, and Jr helped me get back into music, and they inspired me to be my own man, combine different music styles with my Blues. I have been working on there songs, and have been writing poetic songs like they did about my problems. I began to realize that music is my love, I cant live without it (when I did, it was horrible), and I need to follow what I love. I began to work on Banjo and piano songs more. I will never stop on the Blues, but I want to do other styles of vintage music. 

 

While all of this was happening, I began to realize what was causing me to feel tired, and what was killing my creativity, and everything, it was my medicine, my medicine for Obsessions was making me angry, and it went from doing its purpose to the complete opposite. With my Doctors full agreement, I went off of them, and I felt a great change in myself, my creativity was back, and my energy was back, and finally, I can say it, that I have noticed an improvement in my thoughts, specifically when I was obsessed on death or had health paranoia. So I have made improvement on my life, I am back, I am my own man, and I am staying strong with my music career, and I am still doing college, I still gets bits of sadness, bits of anger, and bits of worried thoughts, but it goes away. I got all of my work back on the internet and was happy about it. My grades are still an issue, and I am going to work on it as hard as I can. 

 

 

Creighton