Joshua Ray Summey

So the post ‘Post Hazy Ray/Dad’ era of my already eclectic music career has been a chore-and-a-half to get off the ground. For the first time in sometime though, there is trajectory. And as it is with me, with trajectory, comes momentum.

Just because I have trajectory, doesn’t mean my post has to. 😉 So I am going to go ahead and word vomit the things I can tell you about.

Part I: Michelle Richards

Over the course of this blog I have mentioned being excited about writing, and co-producing a small project with Michelle, my god mother. She was a big part of my (at the time, inexplicable-) sanity during my first year off of the road in ten. I needed music in my life, and Hazy Ray was no more.

I joined her church because after I told her how awesome she was, she asked if I was musical in any capacity. Her choir needed people.

I joined. She gave me tenor parts and taught me how to read them. She pushed me to arrange psalms, solo,  and duet with her(?). And eventually mentored me through RCIA (becoming Catholic, something I have wanted to do for my wife for a long time).

Over the course of that time, we spent a lot of time looking over music, talking, and occasionally (more often than not) drinking a beer with her husband. I learned that she was a fan of Hazy Ray and the songs that I had written. More importantly I learned, since her sister had given it ago, she had always wanted to write songs and have project recorded. Like a fool (just kidding michelle, and sorry Mike LOL) I said, “Well sh$%!, I can help with that”. So it slowly became a regular topic if conversation over the following year, a year in which she went through quite a transformation herself. Alas that is only your business if she decides to make it yours.

So, moving on. The following took place in New Orleans, and as life often does, it took me away… to San Antonio. Well, I am stubborn, and have never really given a flying… let’s go with “fart”- about what life has to say about the things I want to do. Wouldn’t you know it; the newly-transformed-Michelle, has a similar view point (thanks in no small part to the best corner man in the history of corner men, her husband.) A stalled kidney stone wouldn’t stop a broken vinyl pressing of Mckenna’s greatest hit “It Doesn’t Matter, Ya Gotta Do It For You”  So husband laid up and pushing her out the door, she buys a round trip ticket to San Antonio.

To be continued…