October 16, 2021, Observing my 70th Birthday

I’m sending this blog/ newsletter out, to reach out to old friends, dear friends.  Some I’ve lost touch with, I've never seemed to put down roots, and at times it troubles me, but it's been a great run.   

October 16, this year is my 70th birthday, the dates, the memories, the loves, the loss, the songs that never seem to age, but we turn the page, write another song, stay strong, and carry on

So many gigs, travels, losses, all run together, in fragments, some as clear as yesterday.  Before moving to Spain, I had a steady house gig at a beach resort on the Alabama Gulf Coast, that turned into almost 4 years.  I liked the steady income, but in a way it was like being a busker in a busy airport   I was very good at the piano bar gig, with a repertoire, of  thousands of songs, from Beethoven, Jellyroll Morton, Bach, Bacharach, Beatles, Bob Dylan, Bowie, Barry White, Barry Gibb, and Frank Sinatra.   I got tired of the same 10 requests, Piano Man, Sweet Caroline, Sweet Home Alabama, Wagon Wheel, Mustang Sally, and put together this Song List poster, displayed near my piano,  to remind the folks, what an amazing musical legacy we have, and the gift that I had to know all of these songs, by ear and by heart, and having the experience, to work with many of the writers and performers of these songs, throughout my life.   My musical memory is an incredible gift, where I learned to play most any of these songs in any key.  It was like a mental exercise for me, and also because my voice was changing and I continually had to adjust the range, not only for me, but for whatever singer I was backing up.   

  I'm thankful now, that I am back doing concerts in great venues, with amazing musicians and writing some inspiring music.   . 
  One of the waiters, who was from Budapest, would always request “My Way” from Sinatra.  I would jokingly say “I’m saving it for my 100th birthday, but I would sometimes play it, even thought to me it was a bit too “grandiose” and over the top for a bluesman at heart.  Yes, regrets, I’ve had more than a few, but life is good, and I am grateful for all of you and the incredible experiences, touring the world, and doing what I love.  I was just watching Tony Bennett on 60 minutes, still singing, even though he’s going through Alzheimer’s.  The Week I was born, in 1951, he had a top ten hit, and amazing he’s still singing.   I wrote a song on my new CD called "Let's Get it Right This Time". Perfect for Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga,  duet with The amazing vocalist Vanessa Bryan.  The lyricist on this song and a few others on the upcoming CD is Nancy Krasn Gumbiner. She discovered me on Airgigs.com,  The melodies seem to jump off the page in this musical brain of mine, and so glad we connected.   

I now live in Palos de la Frontera Spain, about an hour south of Seville, which was the historical launch of the 1492 Voyage of Columbus and those 3 ships we memorized in 1st grade that arrived in the Americas on October 12, 4 days before my birthday.  Replicas of them are docked a few minutes from my home, which seems a bit surreal, when I think of our shipping container leave the Mobile Bay, making full circle coming here.  

  As we approach Columbus Day or in my take on all of this, to many of my friends in Canada, Berkeley and the East Bay, Indigenous Peoples Day, or “First Nations”, as we re examine our history considering the people of the earth, conquest, racism, slavery, religion, monuments, and other reckoning to come to terms with.   

 JLS & The Gospel Messengers,  My band here in Spain and I are mostly all immigrants, me and our Bass player, Nick Sullivan, via Minneapolis, Americanos, my drummer Akin and 2 beautiful talented backup singers, Deborah Ayo, and Astrid Jones, are of Nigerian descent, and stars of their own on the Madrid Music scene, and are well versed in American black soul blues and Gospel. and from the first rehearsal, everything clicked.   I'm grateful for my friend Gecko Turner on guitar, an established Spanish Roots music artist/songwriter who helped me become established here in the music scene in Spain.  

We had an amazing tour last December of Gospel music, in concert halls with Concert Grand pianos, great acoustics, lighting and road crew, that was a dream come true. 

I had a life of privilege, and a great university music education learning orchestration, classical music, and jazz, but much of my first paying gigs, were playing rough juke joints of North Louisiana and East Texas where I learned Funk, blues and jazz.  During the early 70s, at the university of North Texas, I played the country Honky Tonks at night, while learning Classical orchestration and Bach counterpoint during the day.

My first visit to Europe, age 21, was a Summer University program in Rome, in 1973, I saw the Montreux jazz fest, meeting legends like Freddie King, Professor Longhair and Dr. John, where American roots music was praised, and put in beautiful concert halls, and studied, where back home, it was in the back alleys, and small clubs.     I have a long way to go with my Spanish immersion, but every day becomes a bit more fluent.  

It’s a long story, which I won’t go into here, but hard to believe, 10 years ago I was going through radiation/Chemo treatments for stage 3 cancer on my tongue in British Columbia Canada, which I am now a survivor.  I’m ever grateful of their single payer health care system that saved my life.  You may be familiar with it through the tragic death of Eddie Van Halen.  I guess I never got my affairs in order, because I’m still here, thank God, Still touring, writing, and married to the love of my life Maria, I guess 3rd time’s a charm, We just celebrated our 6th anniversary last week, but we met in 1995, on a Long John Baldry Tour of Germany, where she lived. 
  We moved here on Thanksgiving Day 2019, and our shipping container arrived on Christmas day, a few days after we had signed a lease.  I guess there is serendipity in all of this, and I wrote a song about it on my new CD, called “Palos de la Frontera”, with a great lyricist, Nancy Krasn Gumbiner, which is on my new CD.  

I start another tour, December 2021, dates still to be confirmed, and hopefully a new release around the same time, called “Songs Have A life of Their Own” with all instruments, music, lyrics, orchestration, production from me.  I think this is one of the best songs I ever wrote, and hope you enjoy it.  I’ve posted a few of the tracks as a sampler on the Bandcamp link, for pre-orders.   

 On the new CD, I wanted to write about what many of us have gone through as a people, guardians of the planet, citizens, and did not want to be confined to genres, such as the blues, Americana, or whatever.  Many of my favorite composers write for film soundtracks, where they are conveying the emotions on the screen, and take on another dimension and depth.  

I took one semester of film scoring at San Jose State, and this CD is the soundtrack and my story of the last 4 or so years, which covers romance,  The great divide, climate change, Pandemic response, The Church, Spirituality, travel, Wanderlust, Human Rights, The afterlife, social media and its effect on us all.  There’s only so much you can cover in a 12-bar blues shuffle, even though it’s a blast to play, I have much more to say as a composer.  

I have 20 or 30 hard drives that I’ve kept for over 20 years and found some emails that my family and friends wrote around 1995, before Facebook, Instagram, when most people still wrote postcards, and snail mail.   I remember my father tapping out 5 or 10 letters a night on his loud clacking typewriter, at 50 words a minute, after dinner, late into the night, he was a outstanding and prolific writer, and I miss him.  He took a computer course at age 80, and learned to use Compuserve/ Prodigy, the first online service available to the public in the early 90s.   

 There seemed to be so much hopefulness and a bit of innocence in those early emails, that this technology had the power to change the world for good.  I watched the Senate testimony of Francis Haugen,   The Facebook whistleblower who explained how Facebook uses algorithms to addict young teens, and how polarization and hateful speech increases the bottom line and drives up profits.   One of the songs on my new cd, a fun funky dance number, “Put Down Your Phone”, is about the social implications, and addiction of our phones, and social media, such a drastic change in such a short time on this planet, where 60% of the planet is on Facebook.  I have a bit of an addiction to it all, I confess, living much of my life in Silicon Valley, working with creative people and using the technology, it’s changed the way I create music for the better.  Even so, I still miss the live recording sessions with the whole band in the studio.    

I thank you for your friendship over the years, and all that has connected us.  If you have a moment, check out some of the links, for my music, old and new. I hope to hear from you.  

Much love and gratitude for all of you

John Lee Sanders

Wishing you all a prosperous, safe, and Happy 2021, from John Lee Sanders

Madrid December 2020 Puerta de Alcala
with Poster advertising my Gospel Concert in Madrid with 
John Lee Sanders and the Gospel Messengers.  

 

Here's wishing that 2021 will bring joy, 

love, peace, and happiness to you all.

We’ve all seen a struggle to get through 2020, with the Coronavirus, loss of loved ones, 

Jobs, close of businesses, and trying to understand the bigger meaning to all of us in terms of survival, our creator, and our inter-dependence of life on Earth, as we also take on climate change. 

 In 2003, I read "Demon in the Freezer" how the World Health Organization, with the cooperation of all on earth, wiped out the Smallpox deadly virus. I know if we work together we can make this happen, and wipe out the coronavirus.  There are still hurdles to overcome, with so much misinformation, but we must become reliable information and resist the anti-vaxxers, and conspiracy folks, and defeat this deadly plague.   In March of 2020, during the first stay at home order, I wrote, arranged and produced "Gone Viral", about the world response to the virus, the USA pathetic response as it became political, with denial of facts, and putting nations, states, and social classes against each other, instead of fighting a common enemy, and fighting the pandemic as if it were a war.   

In December of 2020, I was blessed and a bit overwhelmed,  to do a 9 Major city Gospel Christmas concert tour of Northern Spain, including the Capital city of Madrid, in the Fernán Gomez Teatro. 

I was often amazed at the level of respect and reception, especially as a recent immigrant to and almost unknown artist in Spain in the middle of a global pandemic. My band and I were required to take 2 Coronavirus tests, required to perform and some of the venues, and fly from Madrid to the Canary Islands, off the Coast of Africa.  #gospelmusic 

#gospelpiano #gospelmusicinspain

  Our tour was covered by many of the major news outlets, and press of Spain including Antenna 3, the top major network of Spain.  The beautiful state of the art performing concert halls with beautiful Yamaha and Steinway 9’ Grand pianos, and enthusiastic crowds welcomed a Gospel Christmas tour of my American Roots Gospel, after so much live music events had been canceled in 2020. 

 Seating was assigned with social distancing, mask mandates, huge stages, and distance between the band members, with private dressing rooms for me, the band, our two female vocalists, but unfortunately no meet and greets after the shows. 

 I had an amazing group of Musicians, and singers.  Astrid Jones and Deborah Ayo, well known performers, and vocal coaches in their own rite, from Madrid, of Nigerian decent, who were extremely well versed in American Black Gospel, Soul, Hip Hop and Pop Music, and gave an authenticity to our tour as experienced in some of the videos.  The rhythm section was Akin Onasanya, also of Nigerian Origin, a well known drummer, percussionist, singer and composer on the Spanish Roots jazz/Soul music scene.  Akin"s father was a Nigerian Minister, and grew up playing and singing in his father"s choir in Africa.  Also on the tour was Nick Sullivan on Bass, from Minneapolis, now in Madrid, and Gecko Turner on Vocals, Guitar, and percussion.  I have sincere gratitude to Gecko for introducing me to the Spanish Music scene, our booking agency and much more.  

John Lee Sanders and the Gospel Messengers

In December of 2019, my wife Maria and I took a bold step and moved from the Alabama Gulf Coast to the southern coast of Spain about an hour south of Seville.

We didn’t know what Plans God had for us, but we are still continually blessed with the roots and the fruits in this wonderful experience and protected at every turn.    

Our small village is named Palos de la Frontera, best known for the being the disembarkation of   legendary voyage of three ships of Christopher Columbus.  The Captains of the 2 other ships, the Niña, and Pinta, were the Pinzon Brothers are from our village.  

Replicas of the 3 Columbus Ships in our Village, Palos de la Frontera

Blessing of the Voyage of Columbus, below the church in our village of Palos de la frontera

 My neighborhood is very diverse, with African and Muslim immigrants, as well as Spanish born citizens.  Maria was born in Spain and immigrated with her parents to Germany in the late 60s.  I met her on a 1995 Long John Baldry tour, where I was a featured vocalist, piano player and saxophonist.  We reconnected in 2012 and have been together ever since.   

Marin Headlands, 2015

Grand Canyon, 2015

Our Wedding Reception, Oct 2015, Gulf Shores Alabama

In 2015, Maria and drove down from my home in Vancouver to do a 6-week gig on the Reno Snow Train, where I played piano and sang on the Royal Gorge Piano Lounge, From the Emeryville Oakland Amtrak Station, (home to Pixar Studios) through the beautiful and sometimes Snow Capped Sierra Madres.  

 I was in the process of recording my recent CD, Tweakin’ some Twang, my rather diverse take on Americana Music, with some of my Southern roots.  The 12 original  songs were well written, some great A list session players, from Nashville, California and Europe that I had worked with over the years, and some were great finds, such as  Brent Mason on guitar, CMA Musician of the year many times over

We recorded some great rhythm tracks at Red Rooster Studios in Berkeley with Garth Webber, The Track Shack in Sacramento, and later overdubs in Niagara Falls Studio in Fremont, CA a few miles from the Tesla Factory, with Bruce Kaphan, who played amazing Pedal Steel Guitar, and mixed the entire CD.  We recorded the String Section in St. Petersburg Russia, with Maria Grig and her mini orchestra, which gave some of the songs a cinematic quality that I love.  
 I wrote a song about my time on the train, called "Southbound Train" on my recent CD, "Tweakin Some Twang

The once thriving Vancouver music scene that I experienced over the years, seemed to be on its last legs, from gentrification, and younger audiences who no longer appreciated live music, in favor of Sports bars and discos.  

 I was touring,  playing great venues and festivals, and opening acts for well-known artists such as Bonnie Raitt, I felt it was time for a change. I had formed one of top bands in British Columbia, and rave reviews from the local press, but was often perceived as an outsider, when it came to the recording session player scene that I had been a huge part of in the San Francisco Bay Area.  I recorded this live CD/DVD in 2006 which still holds up as one of my best recordings of my 16 solo CD Catalog.  

  We took a  leap of faith, we headed down the  California Coast, stopping along the way for a show with my longtime friend and backing musician to legendary songwriter,  Paul Williams in Chandler AZ.  

We were blown away and took in the beauty Sedona, the Grand Canyon, then it was Eastbound and down, along Route 66, reminiscing at my old Alma Mater at the University of North Texas in Denton, 

We visited my former hometowns of Monroe Louisiana, Jackson Mississippi, old stomping grounds of Memphis,  New Orleans,  Clarksdale, Jackson, Birmingham, and other  places of my upbringing. 

I considered relocating to back to the Bay Area, or  New Orleans,  Memphis or Austin, but the live and Studio music scene had taken a nose dive, in light of streaming, and other trends.  

 My older Brother, Chip, also a piano player, lined up a 2 week visit to the Alabama Gulf Coast which led to a 4-year piano bar house gig at the Perdido Beach resort.  Maria and I were married in October 2015, and it’s been the happiest years of my life.  I’m not sure the day we came to the decision, but we both realized, in 2019, we wanted to relocate to Europe, where I had been touring since 1993.  We decided on Spain, where Maria has family, a brother, a daughter and son in law, who serves in the Spanish NATO Air Force, (recently stationed in Ukraine 2014, after the Putin Russian invasion), and 4 beautiful grandchildren.  

Moving to the Florida-Alabama Coast Panhandle

The timelines, places, events in our lives all have signs if we are open to seeing perceiving them. “Perdido” means “Lost” in Spanish, which was the name of the river and bay, that was discovered by the Spanish not long after the original voyage of Columbus, which led to the original settlement at Pensacola. The Perdido River, was the Florida-Alabama Panhandle border was also the border between the French and Spanish Territory, before the American Revolution.  

In November of 2019, we loaded up a 20’ Cargo shipping container of all of our possessions, guitars, saxes, keyboards,  studio gear, clothes, antiques, which could barely make it down our narrow one way street.  We had to cut a few branches off of a huge pine tree to get the container into the drive. 

The shipping container arrived at our home in Spain,  on Christmas Day, 2019, Across the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic, from the Mobile Bay, I took all of these things as guideposts and tried to put them all in perspective, and make sense of all of the signs in my life as things seem to come full circle.  There are replicas of the 3 Columbus Ships here in our village, and a statue of him in the city square, as we re-examine our history, in light of the indigenous peoples of the earth, Cancel Culture, and the succession of  Conquistadores that would follow.  I remember living in the East bay of California, when the City Council of Berkeley, voted that  Columbus day, was renamed “Indigenous Peoples day.