Even when you are a life-long music maker, you don’t know how people are going to respond to your public musical offerings.  Sure … your friends, co-workers and other acquaintances are supportive to your music.  But, how will others who never heard of you take to mostly highly rhythmic, happy, energetic Island, Central and South American music?  The IslandFrank website provided very positive and rapid results.  Oh, there were problems!  Immediately, hackers appeared making us work very hard to maintain the site integrity.  It appeared to me that we had something to share regarding music, photos and other art forms.  Our new location on Pine Island, Florida, contributed immensely to our feelings as depicted in songs like “Take a Southbound Train” which was composed with our friends and relatives in mind.  “Stepping Out,” “Breaking Free,” and “I’d Rather be Sorry” are songs reflecting the mood of let’s go for it if you feel strongly about doing something you’ve always wanted to do.

“Sunset with You” is a song for Sharon, who is a wonderful partner in all of our life’s adventures.  She does so much, including the artwork on the covers and technical interfacing with webmasters and on and on.  “Limbo” is something I’ve always loved to do, with a bit of success.  “Mi Islacita” is a deep feeling song that came to me on a dark, dangerous and exhausting night off of Isla Mujeres, which is just off the Yucatan Peninsula.  We had just finished an awful race from Galveston in continuously strong headwinds.  This event is the source of endless horror stories involving monstrous seas, the DEA, darkness the depth of which I have never again experienced, circular colums of clouds from the sea level to 10,000 feet located in clusters about a mile apart inside of which lightning lit the columns to a brightness that allowed us to read, and on and on.

When we finished the race, we were too exhausted to wind our way through the reefs in the dark under sail and anchor in the harbor of the island.  We anchored near a reef on the outside and sprawled, exhausted on the deck and cockpit.  The strains of Spanish guitars drifted out to our anchorage from shore.  The melodies became haunting, speaking of requited love and soulful passion.  This music, entering my sleeping mind and body through my subconscious, played in my memory for years allowing me to compose “Mi Islacita.”  “Besame Mucho” and “Poinciana” are other old Spanish songs that I have always loved.  The hot, passionate Latin Salsa – “I Want to Come to America” from West Side Story is and always will be a very popular song.  “St. James City Reggae” is my attempt to bring reggae to Pine Island, a place where Country music seemed like all that you could hear when we first came to Pine Island.

Listen to Snippets from this Album