Blind Curve CD

I wanted to be a performer for as long as I can remember. I guess it started with singing in the shower until the hot water ran out. Saw the Beatles on TV and thought it looked like fun. And my dad hated it...."hmmmm... I might be on to something here," thought I. Mom, on the other hand, was a frustrated housewife in a bad marriage. She seemed to be sad a lot. But she would hum and sing around the house and there was always some shlocky radio station playing in the background. More than anything I believe that's where my love of a good melody came from. Sang in grade school shows and found out I liked it when the music teacher said for me to stand out front and sing and the audience applauded. If you look at the Richmonds' home movies you'll see it's basically "The Jake Show" with some other kids in the background.... so when people clapped at the end of a song I was hooked. Bugged my parents for a guitar forever ‘til they finally got me a $35.00 Kent nylon string guitar when I was 9. I immediately signed up for the school talent show. Not knowing how to play (or even tune...) a guitar wasn't gonna slow me down!! I can only imagine what that 9 year old boy with that untuned guitar sounded like... ah, enthusiasm!!!Met Tim lopes in 7th grade. His band played all the jr. high school assemblies and he was very popular with the girls. I asked him why and he said, "it's 'cuz I play guitar...." and I thought to myself "hmmm, i've got a guitar." So I "learned " to play it. Having no patience I immediately got the best players I could from my school and I put a band together. I’m sure we sounded about as good as you think but god it was fun. A friends front door key fit the lock to the girls bathroom at a local grade school and after hours, when no one was around, four kids with one amp would go in there cuz the echos were killer. It was teen age boy heaven, a magic wand. the key to make everything feel good and make sense.....quit school in the beginning of my jr. year to be a professional musician. i wanted to take Duane Allman's place in the Allman brothers band. I’d actually still like the job!!! By age 19 I was good enough to bluff my way into "the Jeremiah Sundown Band". We toured the mid west for almost a year. When that came to an end I moved to Los Angeles to be where the real deal was. Spent 18 of the next 23 years there. I got scared at first cuz there's some world class talent down there, then I realized that they were better than me at their "game" but that no one could "out Jake Richmond" me. So I've always tried to play exactly what I feel. Works mostly, sometimes it don't. Ahh, life on the edge....LA really toughened/ tightened me up and I played as a pick up player in a lot of bands. met a woman with a good job, a house and a couple kids. I’d been tired of couches and station wagons for some time and decided to try the straight life of husband and father. After a few years it became obvious to me that this marriage wasn't gonna work and that since I didn't have to be "responsible" anymore I put "the Jake Richmond band" together with the personnel from "Perry’s Wife", a popular bar band I had for years before I got married. We played blues around the LA area and we even got picked up for a half dozen Japanese tours in the mid 90's. Over a 3 year period we recorded what was to become my first album" it's about time..." which I didn't press until Fab at Lone Pine records approached me about it in 2000. It’s now out of print, though I still play a couple tunes from it live. Drugs and drama nearly killed me so I moved back here to the bay area. Wound up on the Russian River where I met Daniel Patchin. We put this silly little bar band together so we could make noise, get a couple free beers and maybe chase a pretty girl or two... we had a lot of fun, hire a "chick singer" and a great drummer, James Foster. I’ve always had a feeling that James will wind up on big concert stages (I still believe it!) and so I di