Rock and Roll Busker by Forbes Graham;

Author:Forbes, Graham; [Graham Forbes]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1316338
Publisher: McNidder and Grace Limited
Published: 2013-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

23

VELVET HAMMER BAND

After Darkwater fell out and split up, as bands always do, I was very disappointed and went off to Florida for a while. I’m very lucky I can do that. I know a lot of musicians in the Sarasota area, especially blues players. Like Beth. I’ve jammed with her many times in bands around town. She’s a softly spoken woman, thoughtful, cares deeply about politics.

She stirs her coffee, milk no cream, thanks, medium-black, pauses for a second, gathering her memories.

She has a lot.

It has been a long and winding road with many potholes and rough uphill turns to get here, this busy breakfast and lunch café on sunny Main Street. She glances at the diners, mainly retired folk, some twisted and bent, others lean and slow moving with skin stretched tight over liver-spotted hands, gnarled knuckles, arthritic pain that no pills will ever cure, hands that have worked all their days and been careful with a dollar.

Some of them are not much older than she is, but Beth knows how to look good. She is glad to have her health. Life hasn’t quite worked out as she planned, but she has no complaints. She’s never been one to dwell on what might have been, or what she once had. She didn’t always have to read the prices on menus, didn’t always have to check the blackboard for the lunch specials. There were times – good times– when things were oh so different. But that was back then and now is now.

Beth is a bass guitarist.

She was born into a musical family in the Midwest, and pretty early on discovered she had perfect pitch. It never occurred to her that this was unusual, that she could have studied piano or perhaps something with strings like cello or violin. She could have passed her life easily and gently in an orchestra, or perhaps with one of those TV house bands, reading the dots, playing whatever the visiting guests needed.

When she had been in college she had loved working student radio; she had the soft easy-flowing voice for it. A local cable TV station was looking for a weather girl, and they liked her. Soon Beth was telling nervous commuters if tornados were heading for their towns, which tropical storms she was watching in case they exploded into hurricanes and how the northwest mountains were shivering in blizzards. It was easy work, and fun.

Then the news anchor was feeling far more depressed than anyone suspected and committed suicide on air.

The call came within an hour. Could she do the late news that night?

She could, and did.

Soon she was a personality. She was a success, so much so that other stations began calling, offering big salaries and expense account lunches. She was quite settled at the local station, but she’d always liked a challenge. Despite a nagging doubt, she accepted one that seemed too good to turn down. They promised that she would head the news team, make the big decisions, it was her dream job.

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