Miss Leslie

Individuality

I believe that common themes occur in your life to lead you to lessons and answers if you will listen. Lately, I have encountered the recurring theme of individuality. 

My youngest son is 10 years old. He is a very physical child. He struggles in school.  He was not designed to sit at a desk for 7-8 hours a day. But he is growing up in a world where the learning environment is geared towards one type of learner. The challenge as a parent is not only how to make a child successful in that environment, but how to encourage them to maintain the integrity of their soul and not give in to feelings of inadequacy. How do I make a child who is failing not feel like a failure?

We have conversations about his strengths and interests. And I remind him as much as I can that he is the only combination of cells, matter, and personality that will ever exist. He is unique. As far back and human history has gone and as far into the future it will exist, there will never be another him. Never.

It is an idea that has always intrigued me.

Somehow a conversation came about with my almost 14 year old daughter about my life choices – my failed relationships, my decisions that have impacted and continue to influence her life. I told her my view of Life is that we each weave our own blankets (my mother has a friend that croches afghans and baby blankets).  Each decision we make and each situation we encounter in our life (whether good or bad) takes us to a different place – adds a different color to make our blanket uniquely our own. I told her that it was exciting if you think about it – you can look behind you and see what your life has become and you can look ahead and see the endless possibilities of where it will go. The key is to remember in the hard times and struggles that this is your own. This is YOU. This is where you are to take you further along self-discovery.

Embracing your individuality and uniqueness is difficult and is a constant battle.  Society pressures you to conform. People around you (and yes, most of the time it is people that are the most close to you and that love you) try to mold you into their own notions of what you should be or influence decisions you make. They forget that those are their colors – those threads are not theirs to choose. They cannot weave your tapestry. And if you allow it, you end up with a blanket that does not fit – one that cannot surround your true soul.

But accepting your individuality can be almost terrifying. A friend and I joke about how dysfunctional musicians are. . . . can you blame us? We live in the fear constantly. Try getting onstage in front of an audience that doesn’t like you and makes fun of you. Try releasing an album and hearing negative criticism from real critics or just a guy sitting at a bar. Getting pointed at, made fun of, criticized and put down don’t encourage authenticity. You just want to crawl in a hole. And after years of struggle, many artists just conform. Play what “the crowd” wants to hear.

Fear brings some of us to anesthetize ourselves with alcohol, drugs or food. For others it causes us to join groups and lose our identity in those groups. For others, a significant relationship is enough to get lost in – claiming the identity that the other person lays out for us.

But for those of us that stand, we stand up and remind ourselves daily who we are. We remind ourselves of our journey and our path. We remember that we are taking a series of steps. And our boyfriend or girlfriend or flavor of the month is not always going to understand the step we’re on. We are the only ones that see the bigger picture. It is our blanket and we are using our own threads.

This album that we are mixing this week is different.  It is a different progression of “Miss Leslie”. I don’t know why. I don’t know why I have written some of the songs I have written. I understand them in some ways lyrically, but musically I don’t know where they came from. Soul depth is all I know. And truly, that is good enough for me.

A good friend, who has a great musical ear, describes it as country with an edge. I hope that people like it. I hope that it will be heard. But I keep that fear around me and remember WHO I AM. Someone close to me may not like what I do. The whole world may not understand. But these are my colors, my blanket, and my tapestry. 100 years from now my great, great, great granddaughter will run across a picture of me online and tell her Mom, “Hey did you know my great, great, great grandmother played the violin?” Maybe they will find out more. Maybe they won’t. But I was here. And I weaved a tapestry. And it was mine.

Stand up. Embrace who you are. Be who you are. Love who you are. Ain’t nobody like you. And honey, that’s a good thing.

Hope

Hope:  Believing in something that you can’t see.

2 weeks ago, I got a phone call that a colonoscopy found a cancerous tumor in my brother’s colon. The next day a CT scan showed tumors in the liver. The diagnosis was Stage 4 Colon Cancer. With each bit of news we watched our world crumble around us. We scrambled to find some part of hope to cling to – some piece of information that would mean that even though we couldn’t see the good outcome, it was there waiting for us.

There is a faith element of hope. The worker that lost their job and is looking for a new one. The child that has gone missing. The bad relationship that seems to never get better. . . . Sometimes you just have to believe. Hope doesn’t promise that the outcome you desire WILL happen, but hope inspires you to continue on – to go forward, to continue to TRY.

I have had this honky tonk band for almost 9 years now. I am working on my 5^th CD - the 3^rd CD of originals.  I have received great reviews. I have toured in Norway, France, Sweden and the UK. I have played in some great historic Texas dancehalls. I was on Season 1 and Season 3 of the Tru Country Music Show on the RFD-TV Cable Channel.  I have had 2 of my songs included in the Jack Black movie, “Bernie”. And even with all of this, I am a virtual unknown – a musician constantly on the edge of “failure”.

Throughout my “career”, I have perservered. I have continued to try because I BELIEVED that I would get to a better place as a musician – that I would find some measure of success that would help me continue to do the thing I love the most.

But I found myself in a dark place of discouragement around 2010. I wasn’t sure how long I could continue to go on. And then I started playing at this place called The Track Shack in Spring, TX. You would call it another crappy beer joint (and if you have been my fan for awhile, you KNOW I LOVE crappy beer joints). But it has become a sort of home for me. I perform there the first Wednesday and the first Sunday of the month.  The first Wednesday is a full band show with primarily cover tunes. The first Sunday is a more acoustic show, where I’ll do a good mix of originals and covers.

But what has been amazing is how my audience has built – how they have responded to my original music. And how somehow through the process I have found a renewed sense of hope.  I’m not hoping to be on the Grand Ole Opry or have a hit on Billboard but I’m hoping to just keep playing music. My goal is to be able to continue to write and record my songs. And to perform them live.

It’s not like some drastic change has happened. This is a little local bar in Spring – not some theater in downtown Houston. But it is truly amazing the transformation that can happen when you are surrounded by people that believe in you. Suddenly you have a renewed sense of strength and find within yourself not only the ability to continue on, but even a strength that carries you to new heights and on to that hope that you had lost.

My brother has received an overwhelming response from a whole network of people who believe – people who have hope. His first fundraiser by his home in Charlotte, NC is named “Fight Gone Good”. Someone asked me what that meant, and I’m not completely sure except my translation lately is that he is fighting for hope. He is trying. He is continuing on.

He has given me hope. Hope for him. Hope for me. Hope for all of us in this life struggling to live and to grow and to just be what we are meant to be.

After 3 days of testing and receiving news that his condition was not good, Joel went to another doctor at Duke University in Raleigh, NC. He received the first promising news that he had received in days – a course of treatment and the possibility of a successful fight. . . . The doctor’s first name was Hope.

Believe. I believe.

 

Joel Sloan pictured below.

Day 2 of Recording

DAY 2

Producer/Sound Engineer: Tommy Detamore

Musicians:
Piano – Floyd Domino
Drums – Lisa Pankratz
Guitar – Wayne “Animal” Turner
Bass – Brad Fordham

Our Drummer Du Jour is Lisa Pankratz, another ACE drummer. I have less trepidation today and more excitement. And I’m wearing my Willie Nelson t-shirt so it’s gotta give us some more good luck, right?

We start out with recording an incredible song that my sister, Hilary Sloan wrote. It’s called “Angels That Promise the Stars”.  My admiration for my sister’s creativity started when she was about 4 and has never really stopped. She is an amazing, beautiful soul and can write one HELL of a song. And this one is one that I knew I HAD to record the first time I heard it. And Floyd Domino MADE this song. I got CHILLS. I told Floyd that this was his song, and the rest of us were just backup to it. LOVE THAT.

You have to understand what I’m about (and if you’ve followed me online at all, you already know this). . . I’m all about the song. Period. When I demo-ed all of these songs for Tommy Detamore in a pre-production meeting, Tommy asked me about if I worried about isolating any of my existing fanbase (that would be those of you that are hardcore 1960s country and don’t want to hear anything else. . . . . and hey that’s cool, but country music is a LOT more than that to ME). And I told Tommy, “I want these songs to become what they ARE. I don’t want to try to make them into anything or try to do anything other than what they should be.” Tommy’s response was, “So we are making music for music’s sake. What a concept.”

So here we are, recording all of the rest of the songs on the album (except for “This Old Guitar” which we’re recording on Day 3 – just guitar and steel), and I have no idea how to classify this album but it’s me. It’s another collection of snapshots from my life – feelings I’ve had, mistakes I’ve made, and lots of good times.

Thank you. Thank you for letting me do this. Thank you for making this possible. I hope you love these songs as much as I do. I hope that you hear something that makes you feel – makes you laugh, makes you cry, makes you remember some sad or happy time in your life. That’s why I write. That’s why I sing.

Very early on in the life of my “honky tonk years”, a fan came up to me after a show and said, “You sing like you want to be heard.” That’s it. That’s all. If you can hear me, then this is worth it to me.

I’ll post a pic of the Day 2 Crew later.

Day 1 of Recording

DAY 1

Producer/Sound Engineer: Tommy Detamore

Musicians:
Piano – Floyd Domino
Drums – Tom Lewis
Guitar – Wayne “Animal” Turner
Bass – Brad Fordham

The first day of recording for me is a little intimidating - especially when you are recording songs that you wrote. And even more when you are playing with amazing musicians that you respect. And these guys are ACES. So it’s like going on a first date. You spend a little time getting to know each other. So we started on a common ground – a bridge (as Tommy said) between what I’ve done before and where we are going with this new album.

The first song we cut was a song called “Fifty Years Ago Today”. I wrote this song for Ricky Davis’ parents’ 50^th Wedding Anniversary. I was inspired when I heard the story of their romance. Ricky’s Dad was in the military and was stationed in Texas. He came up to Vegas with a buddy and went on a double date with Ricky’s Mom and another gal. They had a great time. Ricky’s Mom went back home to Salt Lake City, UT and his Dad went back to Texas. They talked on the phone for a period of time and one night Ricky’s Dad asked his Mom to meet him in The Little White Chapel in Vegas on her birthday. And 50 years later, they are still together.

We cut “I’ll Take What I Can Get”, “I Don’t Go There”, “It’s Rainin Inside”, “Outside the Outsiders”, “Nice Girl” (a song written by my friend Davin James), and “I Don’t Want to Know”.

Recording can be a tedious process of listening and over-analyzing and wondering. But what I love is the creative element – the bouncing off of ideas by musicians and hearing what sounds other people bring to the table. You write a song and you sometimes hear the whole thing in your head. Most of these songs, I just heard a part of it. I had no idea what they could be. That’s why I left this project primarily in the hands of Tommy Detamore. But in the studio, it is always a combination of many minds and souls.

To say that I was on a high after the first day is an understatement. I get excited about a song when I write it. But there’s a renewed excitement when it’s recorded. It’s your brand new baby – still in the hospital, still waiting to go home. But you have fallen in love – you can’t stop staring and those feelings of amazement just keep running through you.

Here’s a pic of the “Black Friday” crew:

L-R: Wayne Turner, Moi, Tom Lewis, Brad Fordham, Floyd Domino

 

At the Back of the Class

So I’ve been in an exercise regimen for awhile. I go to a class at the YMCA every day. It’s interesting what you discover at the back of the class.

The back of any place is typically reserved for the beginners, the losers, the untalented and those who are unsure. The cheap seats are at the back of the auditorium. The most prominent church members sit at the front. Those churchgoers who are late and (stereotypically) less involved sit at the back. The back of the school bus is for the rowdy bunch. The back of the school classroom is for the ungifted and lazy. Those who sit at the front of the classroom have their arms raised constantly with the answers. Life is different. But Life continues the same.

So I join these classes and stay at the back. But what you see more noticeably in an exercise class that you do not see so strikingly in other environments is that EVERYONE is struggling. You find that you are not the only beginner. And if you are one of the few, you are not the only one having trouble with coordination and doing the moves with perfect grace. You also come to notice quite readily that YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY ONE SWEATING.

My Pride causes me to struggle with being at the back of the class. On top of an over-achieving personality, I was raised in an environment where achievements were my keys to self esteem. I always had to be the first, the best and the brightest. And I did it. I sat at the front of the class, graduated at the top of my class, sat in the first chair and led the orchestra. I continued in my career moving up the corporate ladder quite steadily and successfully.

Ahhhhhhh. . . . . but Life led me to the back of the class. And I see things that I never could have seen in the front. You see, in the front row, all you can really see is yourself. POSSIBLY those next to you, but if you are focused on achieving, all you see is your own self. You do not gain the empowering knowledge that when you make a mistake, about 20 other people in the class made it right along with you.

At the back of the class, you realize that we are all different and all the same. We are all struggling, pushing, challenging and sweating. We all reach successes only to find them either diminish or fall into failure or ruin soon after. We all fail over and over again, only to meet triumph after “one more try”. We all want more. We all get hurt. We all fall down. We all overcome.

After awhile I moved to the middle in my class. Not necessarily because I am now able to do 80% of the class, instead of the 40-50% when I started. But I moved to the middle because I know that front, middle or the back, I am part of it all. I struggle. I fall over. And everyone else around me does too.

Try it sometime. Change your perspective. If you’ve been at the front, move to the middle or back. If you’ve been in the middle, move to the back or front. And if you are at the back, stay there and keep observing. You’re not a loser. They’re not a winner. We are all blazing our own trails back to the stars. If only we could remember that they are simply our own – no different, no better, just unique.

A man once told me, “The more I live my life, the more I realize that what I need is more patience and more humility.” That statement is never brought more home to me than at the back of the class….

Where I’m stayin.

In the Company of Women

I went thru a period of time from my 20s thru my 30s where I had few female friends in my life. Life for me was about work, church and family and little else.

Starting my 40s has been rewarding in more ways than I ever thought possible. Some of it has to do with the wisdom that comes from years of knowledge, experience and understanding of one’s Self, but I believe that a big help for me has come from the company of women.

Some of my girlfriends are my age, a couple are younger and most are older. They bring to my life the same years of knowledge, experience and understanding but from a different Life, temperament and persona. The result is a wealth of love, heart and soul at my fingertips.

We share similar experiences with relationships with men. Most of us are nurturers and rescuers. We tend to look for the same things – and crash and burn on the same things too. We understand our weaknesses and shortfalls and we accept them. We find most times that we are not offered the same acceptance in return from our male “companions”. We blame ourselves for the failed relationships but help each other realize we can’t take on all of the blame. We see our patterns repeat and can’t seem to break away. And then some of us do – and we applaud them and find encouragement to try to break out of our own patterns.

We share similar experiences with our children. Our nurturing sides make us great mothers – but critical of ourselves. We share the paths that we have been on – that we are all walking along a road that mothers have walked along since the beginning of time. We are just going through the same hardships, heartaches and celebrations. We can get through the bad days and rejoice with each other through the great ones.

We share similar experiences with other women. We struggle with the comparisons that are constantly made in a culture that values materialism and things that are easily seen like money and outward beauty. We fight the comparisons. We wage war against a machine by focusing on physical and mental health and loving our Selves for who we ARE and love each other for the same thing. We remember that we are not against each other – we are sisters and try to lift each other up.

We share similar experiences with our Selves. Our relationships to our Selves finds just as many struggles as the relationships with our men, children and friends. We talk to each other and become the positive messages that we should listen to and encourage each other to drown out the negative. We remind each other to love our uniqueness and individuality and strive only to cultivate that so that we grow more and thrive. Not just survive.

We have a vast well of strength that rarely runs out. We find that we are empowered and renewed among our women friends. We supply each other with empathy, sympathy, care, concern, discipline . . . . Love. We chastise each other for the same things we chastise within ourselves. We understand that we are a work in progress and we love watching our own progression and encourage it in the women around us. We accept where we are because we see where we have been and we know where we are going in the future.

In the company of women, I am stronger. I have begun to feel that “I am enough”.

Coming Full Circle

FIRST I would like to post that the Kickstarter.com campaign was successful! We raised enough funds to meet our goal to record the new CD!! THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO CONTRIBUTED!

 

 

COMING FULL CIRCLE

There’s a crew of my friends that travel around Texas a lot seeing music shows. They say that Karma is their constant companion. And she’s a bitch. She gets blamed for everything.

No matter what your personal philosophy, you probably believe in some form of karma – Lady Luck, Divine Providence – the concept has many names.

People that try to control karma, providence or luck are funny to me. Not funny ha ha but funny strange. They are like cosmic meteorologists trying to predict the next turn in life or trying to change its outcome thru their actions. But it’s impossible. It always has been and it always will be.

In general, my philosophy lands more in the Buddhist realm where yin and yang reside together – each situation in Life bringing both a positive AND negative result, thus keeping the cosmos in balance. For me, it lets me off the hook. I take my valleys better – realizing that I will reach my summit in time. And I don’t feel I have achieved my ultimate end when I reach the summit. I realize that I am overlooking another valley below.

Everything comes full circle in an endless attempt by Life to make sure that we understand that this all just IS. We can be more giving and forgiving, but the reality is that it all does not necessarily come back to us. We give because there is something inside of us that we must share. We are compelled to have it leave us and go on to someone else. This MUST BE. And maybe we do not get it back at that time or maybe not at all. But that does go on to someone else. And then to someone else. And somehow we are paying forward gifts that are never ending. And it all started with just one person sharing.

I feel that way about my music. You have to understand my writing process. I don’t sit in an office and think, “I’m going to write a song now.” I don’t go to a room with a co-writer and wonder what we’ll come up with. My songs start with some idea from my heart and soul. A melody usually accompanies that idea. And the song grows from there.

I have shared these songs. I have made enough money to hobble along through this maze called the music business. No profits – just enough to keep me going to the next gig or the next recording. My small audience has given back – through emails, words exchanged and gigs and singing along with words that came out of my soul.

After going through a couple of layoffs in 2009 with my day job, my ability to fund my music was greatly diminished. I was still writing songs and I realized after releasing “Wrong Is What I Do Best” in 2010, there was NO WAY I could record another album. . . . then I found www.kickstarter.com.

Honestly, I did not have a lot of confidence that I could raise the funds for a new CD. The world is still undergoing difficult times financially and I knew that my fanbase was small.

And here we are. I reached out. I made myself overcome my fear and step out to ask for help. And you have responded. YOU have given me the ability to record an album once again.

So in March 2013, I will release my 5^th album. I don’t know the title yet – I am waiting for that to come to me. But I will give to you my songs – the ones from the heart, the ones that express my soul. The ones that share with you a part of me that I hope you can share as well.

And the circle continues. And I am grateful. More than you know.

 

Pre-Order the New CD and eBook

The first step to getting a new CD is underway! And I have listened to your requests for a book from me, so I will be releasing an eBook as well!

First thing to do is to help me raise funds for the cost of the recording. I have set up a fundraising campaign with Kickstarter. My link is:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1664612910/new-cd-and-ebook-by-miss-leslie-anne-sloan 

The biggest way you can help is to pre-order the CD and eBook. But there are other options to give and receive cool rewards! Everything goes towards getting this all done! Go to the link and check it out!

Note also, that there will be a big kickoff party on September 8, 2012 at the Track Shack in Spring. It will be a big party with lots of music and activities that will be included on this great project!

Thank you to everyone for your help!

 

 

 

One Good Thing a Day: Day 14: SAFETY

SAFETY

“Tag you’re it!” “I’m Safe!”

We have to retreat to places of safety sometimes - those nests that will envelope us in protection and nourishment.  For some of us, it is home. For others, a favorite park or outdoor site. For others, a bottle and a dark bar. Judge what you want about escaping – but we all need it.

The baby bird has to stay in the nest to grow their wings, build up strength, and open their eyes in order to take flight and build a life of their own. The ship in from the sea has to find a place where it will not be damaged on a rocky shore or float off on its own without someone at the helm. The child at play has to have a fence in order to not run out into the street. We have to have that place of safety until it is time to take our risks.

We could live an adventurous life – constantly taking risks without a safety net. I’ll never forget watching a TV movie about the Flying Wallendas – a family circus act that performed on the high wire without a net. I had nightmares for years about the night in 1962 that they were doing the 7 person chair pyramid and fell off killing 1, paralyzing another and injuring the third person that fell.

But why should we do that? Can we look at life for what it is – a series of risks and opportunities for growth. There are times to take those risks and times to remain in safety. And to realize that each extreme offers us no growth and no rewards. We could never take risks and stay in our safe caves, away from anything that could possibly hurt us – but how can we find new ideas, new thoughts, new ways that we can enrich our lives? We could take risks constantly and inappropriately – never seeking safety, never having reflection on the value of those risks, and lose ourselves in a life with only the shallow highs and avoiding the deep growth of the lows.

As I went for a run the other day, a baby bird was dead on the sidewalk, having fallen from the nest above. I felt sad for that loss of life, but I was touched by the value of safety and the strong need for it to be a part of our lives.

 

One Good Thing a Day: Day 13: PB&J With the Crusts Off

PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY WITH THE CRUSTS OFF

My 9 year old still doesn’t like the crusts on his PB&J sandwiches. Moms out there can relate – it is a pain in the neck to take the crusts off. And messy. Some days you just think, “One  more thing. . . .”

But those missing crusts mean something. Mom cares. Mom lets me be me. And Mom isn’t trying to rush me into the next phase of life.

We live in a society where we are growing up fast. Kids movies are rated PG-13. Video games portray a lot of violence.  TV shows encourage being sexually enticing. Music and everything else is readily available on the web.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not one to ask us all to go back to the 1950s or the Dark Ages. I love technology. I support it and I support it’s growth. But there is a balance there. We have to make sure that we do not lose our humanity as we advance into metal pieces and bits and bytes. And our humanity has always connected with the natural world – that world of climbing trees and jumping rope and skipping and swimming and playing pretend games thought up in our very own brains as we feel the wind in our faces.

My kids are constantly forced to face adult issues online, on TV and in movies. I have tried my best to shelter them as long as I could, but they are getting older. They are transitioning from little boys to big boys and big girl to teenage girl.

I cut off the crusts every day. He means something to me and for right now, I’m OK that he’s still my little boy.