Dr. Dyer and his foot were all mine! I bought Wayne’s books and tapes, and his words of advice rang in my ears: “Don’t die with your music still in you.” I did not intend to; although, at times I despaired of ever performing live onstage again. No doubt, this new persona of singer-songwriter that I was determined to become would present some huge challenges. I hoped Eleanor Roosevelt’s famous quote about those who believe in the beauty of their dreams might apply to me.
Every day I played my guitar, still struggling to coordinate my right-hand finger movements, but somehow managing to execute all the basics needed for our songs. Srdjan helped me arrange the piece I had written for Jack when I first fell in love with him and which I had played at our wedding. “Lullaby for My Love” became simply “Lullaby.” Even though the new lyrics had not been written for anyone in particular, I think they are particularly beautiful and could be sung to either a lover or a child.
Srdjan possessed an exceptional whistling technique that he had developed as a youngster and, encouraged by me, he added it to some of the songs. I took the ideas and melodies of two songs I had originally written in Spanish as “Eres Tu La Gloria de Mi Vida” and “Llevame Contigo,” and changed them into “One in a Million” and “My Gypsy Lover,” the lyrics for which were very loosely inspired by Garcia Lorca’s poem “The Unfaithful Wife,” one of the poems I had discussed with Leonard Cohen over tea in Beverly Hills.
Givo, Srdjan’s brother, suggested I write an English lyric to “Caruso,” one of Europe’s biggest-selling songs, a song with a searingly intense melody. I came up with some poignant English lyrics and called it “Why Must You Leave Me Now,” the only truly sad song on the CD. Securing the rights to that particular song as well as to Julio Iglesias’s “Abrazame,” which I reinvented as “Make Love to Me,” took an entire year of delicate negotiating with the Madrid and Milan publishing houses.
With all these poetic and romantic lyrics that I had been writing I knew that a special kind of classical guitar and vocal duo was being born, and I hoped fervently that the right agent or manager would soon discover us! I flew up to New Jersey for rehearsals with Srdjan, staying at his home with his family or at nearby hotel, or he came to Miami, which he loved, particularly in the winter months. Looking back on my days of writing melodies and lyrics, bathing in the joys of creativity, and suffused with hope for the future, I now realize they were among my very happiest since first meeting Jack in California. Each tropical morning, while sipping a cup of tea, I could hardly wait to pick up my guitar and manuscript paper. The muse was with me, and life felt good in spite of my simplified guitar abilities. Having a supportive friend in Srdjan, who loved the romantic songwriting style in which I chose to compose, made me feel fulfilled and happy. I eagerly awaited his visits, knowing that every time our songs and my voice were slowly improving.
• • •
In August, the hottest month of all, I was once again moving house as my lease had expired and I was determined to escape the flight path noise of Brickell Key. I chose a peaceful old plantation-style house on Munroe Drive in Coconut Grove’s private estate known as Camp Biscayne. The house came with a private canal, a derelict boat, and a shared tennis court. But most importantly I would finally be able to sleep! Or so I thought.
Unfortunately, the first night proved me wrong. Next door, I soon discovered, lay a seven-acre estate that led down to the water’s edge and ended in mangrove swamps — the perfect breeding ground for those nasty flying critters known colloquially as “no-see-ums.” The tiny bugs could fly right through mosquito netting and feasted on me for the next year.
Apart from this annoyance, the place was enchanting. My new abode had a long wooden bridge on one side and a spacious upper floor that I really did not need, so I advertised on Craigslist for a tenant and found a lively French girl called Alexandre. She worked as a professional accountant, and in exchange for free board, she looked after my bookkeeping.
It was while living in Camp Biscayne that a documentary film maker, Max Montalvo from Montreal, spent a day interviewing me on camera for the film called El Payo that he was making on the wonderful flamenco teacher, David Phillips, who years ago had enthusiastically arranged “Malagueña” and “Granada” for me. If only David had known the role those arrangements had played in my career — that millions would view me playing “Malagueña” on YouTube, and many millions more would watch me performing these perennial favourites on American and Canadian network television shows, to say nothing of all the listeners to albums and radio shows once I had recorded them. It might seem unbelievable, but there had never been any classical guitar arrangement of these two popular pieces until I commissioned David to make them. Even my own guitar teacher had considered them too “popular” for my repertoire, but that is the nature of the classical guitar world and its purists, who usually eschew anything that sounds remotely popular. Tragically, Toronto’s much loved flamenco teacher died an alcoholic, a condition due in part, I believe, to the psoriasis that ravaged the poor man’s guitar-playing nails. Fingernails are always an obsession with guitarists as they greatly affect the tone we produce when plucking the strings. Breaking a nail can seriously jeopardize a concert. Fortunately, both Srdjan and I had strong fingernails, and we relied heavily on them when playing together.
Over the next while we worked long hours perfecting our duo songs and tweaking the arrangements. By 2007 we had had assembled sixteen beautiful love songs. Our inspiration when we played together was tangible, and we finally felt ready to start recording a CD. But where? I investigated a dozen studios and producers. Miami was very much attuned to the Latin music scene, and I had the overwhelming impression that the dozen producers I interviewed were not that interested in folky English-language love songs. Trying to decide what to do was both frustrating and time-consuming. It was quite different from Toronto, where I had built up a lifetime of contacts in the music business, or even Los Angeles, where I also had developed quite a network.
One evening I attended a lecture at the Miami Recording Academy, where I was a member, and there I encountered Bruce Swedien, Michael Jackson’s legendary recording engineer, the man who had engineered, mixed, and co-produced, along with Quincy Jones, the biggest selling album of all time, Thriller. This man had also just produced a Swedish classical music CD and had won five Grammy Awards! Bruce told me he had just opened a new studio in Ocala, Florida, and would be happy to produce our songs for us. Wow, what incredible good fortune! I thought. I could hardly believe my luck, and soon after our encounter I took a plane up to Ocala to check out his state-of-the-art studio. We made a deal that I thought was extremely reasonable, and a couple of months later an excited Srdjan flew down to Florida to begin recording.
I had booked a photo session in Miami for our album cover, and later that day Srdjan and I drove north to Ocala, which was situated three hours from Miami, smack in the middle of Florida. We were bubbling with excitement that our songs would be produced by such a renowned name in the music business.
Sadly, it was not meant to be.
I realized through this experience what a difference there is between an engineer and a producer. Bruce gave us hardly any guidance, and his occasional phrasing advice was not to our liking as we had both formed definite ideas about how our songs should sound.
Bruce kept pressing buttons and asked us to sing take after take of the same first part to our first song. Srdjan and I gave each other despairing glances, and we shared the sinking feeling that Bruce was not proving to be the producer we had been hoping for. I tried, over a dinner that his wife kindly made for us, to explain some of our musical ideas, and the next day we began again to lay down some more tracks, but after a couple of hours I took Srdjan aside and whispered that I was going to have to pull the plug. It simply wasn’t working, and I was getting more and more frustrated. Srdjan nodded glumly in agreement.
I am sure that Bruce had been an amazing engineer for Michael Jackson, and he was an amiable and experienced man, but for the two of us who needed a producer’s guidance, it was just not the right fit. He accepted our decision and was fair about returning the majority of the money I had fronted. One suggestion he offered, for which I shall always be grateful, was for me to write English lyrics to “Chiri Biri Bela,” a Croatian song he heard us sing while we were warming up our voices.
The day we