Musical Timeline 16

This is rather lengthy but is the last installment of my Musical Timeline series on my myspace music site at www.myspace.com/fredclarkmusic.

After my move to Louisiana, I performed both in Louisiana and back home in Illinois/Missouri. Some highlights included performing for Clint Harding's show on KDHX in 2000 with 2 other singer/songwriters whose names escape me. That show was done in the KDHX studio. In Louisiana I performed at the Louisiana Music Factory, Cafe Reconcile, Destrehan Plantation, Borders Books and a few places in Baton Rouge. My main venue to perform was the Neutral Ground down on Daneel St. I made a television appearance on the Louisiana Jukebox show. That was good fun. Also appearing on the show that night was 95 year old piano player Al Boudreaux and jazz trumpeter Irvin Mayfield and his band. I hung out with Al a little bit. He died a few years later. Eric Paulsen was a guest host that night and he is originally from St. Louis so that was really cool.
"Living In Dakin's Neighborhood" was sent to many college and public radio stations and received airplay in 18 countries. Thanks to the internet, I was able to make fans all over the world, and I had some DJ's who gave me alot of airplay and publicity, particularly in The Netherlands, Belgium, France and Italy.
"Roll River On" was released to American radio in early 2001 and received airplay in small and medium sized markets, mostly AM and smaller FM stations. I did radio interviews via telephone all over the country and The Netherlands. The song did pretty well on a couple of the small market charts, hitting 33 on one and I think about 77 on the other. Unfortunately, neither one was the Billboard chart, so the big time success didn't come.
My last show in St. Louis was in August of 2001 at the Focal Point in Maplewood. Also performing that day was Jan Marra and Ben Kaplan. The show was taped live for broadcast the following week on the Clint Harding Show on KDHX. Clint was really good to me over the years and I really appreciate that.
My last performance was in March of 2001 at the Neutral Ground. An asthma attack cut my performance about ten minutes short. Thankfully it appears my asthma has gone away. It has not been an issue for several years now.
After that I decided I needed a break. I had a growing family and there were some other things I wanted and needed to do. Me and Lauren now have 4 children-Colette, Bernadette, Bridget and Frederick, with another one on the way. I have another daughter, Stefanie, from my previous marriage.
My hiatus from the music business lasted longer than I originally anticipated. At one point I was so bogged down with things that I almost formally announced my retirement from music, but something stopped me from doing that.
I developed some other serious health issues, hypothyroidism and diabetes, but have them both under control. It was after being diagnosed with diabetes that I decided to work on my music again. After all, life is too short to not do something you enjoy doing.
Dear Fans, It may seem to you that at this point my progress towards the third album is a bit on the slow side, but please realize that my main responsibility is taking care of my family and health first. It will happen. I am planning on recording sometime in '09. I'm still not sure how live performances fit into the master plan, but I will be on stage again.
A funny thing has happened in recent weeks clearly out of the blue. I wrote a kids song. It just came to me one day. Then I wrote another. I performed them at Bernadette's birthday party a few weeks ago on May 9th, my first live performance of any kind since 2002! I now have a grand total of 5 original kids songs. Once I get to 10 I will go into the studio to record a kids album and I will soon be pursuing kid show gigs. This should be happening within the next few months.
I have a new youtube site I am setting up (fredclarktv). Once I get some things on there I will make an announcement.
I've mentioned many of my musician friends from the St. Louis area during this Musical Timeline series but have not mentioned any from New Orleans, so here it goes--some of the folks I played shows with or got to know during my brief performing days in New Orleans---Richard Carr (a St. Louisan and fellow SIU-Edwardsville alum who relocated back to St. Louis after Katrina), Peter Holsapple, Beth Patterson, Ron Keller, Brian Perry, Mike Miller, Susan Cowsill, Gina Forsyth, and Lauren's cousin Rachel Cook, just to name a few. Also thanks to Don Schouest, a fan who scored some gigs for me, (he lives in Ireland now-could be a great manager if he ever decided to go that route!), and Dylan James, who gave me lots of information regarding the local scene. Me and Pershing Wells have been messaging each other lately and I look forward to meeting him real soon.
So ends the Musical Timeline series as I begin a new one!
Thank you for all your support.
Fred