How To Sing Your Life

As a singer songwriter and live performing artist of over fifty years, I know only too well what it takes to get up in front of a large public and bare your soul. Singers make it look easy when in fact it is anything but. Even to this day I still get nervous before a concert.That is just one of the many demons we have to face.

We plague ourselves with all sorts of worries about things like the sound level and quality, our playing and singing and the way that we look. We also worry about whether or not it will be an appreciative audience or an auditorium full of nasty arsehole hecklers. And we worry about whether or not we are going to get paid what was agreed with the owner of the venue.

Knowing all of that I am always appreciative of anybody who has got the guts to get up on stage to perform. Having said that, I think one of the hardest gigs you can do is an audition, like you get on programmes such as 'America's Got Talent' and The X factor' in front of not only an audience but four judges who are not going to pull any punches.

Over the last few weeks I have been catching up on a few singers I seem to have missed over the years and I have to tell you the following three totally blew me away. What all three have got in common is a talent not only for singing or writing their own songs, but also an innate gift for reaching out and touching peoples hearts at a very deep level. All three ladies have created something of beauty out moments of pain in their past or present lives.

Grace Davies really touched me somewhere deep inside with her story about her roots. Like grace I have had a lifetime of naysayers who never lost any opportunity to let me know that they thought I was rubbish, that I would never ever get anywhere. I now know enough about what lies behind those comments the armchair critics made. It was all about them being jealous rather than me not being any good. If only I had known that at the time, my life might have turned out much different to what it has. Still, it's never too late as they say. To hear Grace sing go to......

https://youtu.be/YTNd3qhgv8M

Jane Merczewski, or Nightbirde as she calls herself, is an American singer who totally reduced me to tears with her story and her singing. Her story is one of surviving cancer and a head trauma, not to mention a divorce in the middle of all the therapy she had to have at that time. It was a truly touching story the telling of which imparted one or two amazing takeaways.

When Howie Mendel commented how much she glowed despite all her problems Jane replied that it was important for people to know that she was so much more than all the bad things that had happened to her. The second takeaway was to Simon Cowell when Jane said "You can't wait until life isn't hard anymore before you decide to be happy." I was already a blubbering wreck with the heartfelt song 'It's OK' when she made that comment and it just floored me. To hear Jane sing go to.....

https://youtu.be/CZJvBfoHDk0

What can I tell you about Louise Setara? The woman has an amazing voice and such an easy going, confident manner you can't help but fall in love with her. However, as with Jane and Grace, Louise sang an original song at her audition that sounded like a hit from the get-go. I have to tell you that there have been times I have despaired of hearing anything new, original and exciting ever again. Louise has an incredible clarity to her voice the like of which I have not heard in a long, long time. And again and above all, Louise's original song touched some pretty raw nerves I had hidden deep inside of me for many a decade. To hear Louise sing go to....

https://youtu.be/28eLzPOb3II

Singing is something lots of people can do, but what all three of the above do is communicate, to reach out and touch the hearts and souls of so many of us with their messages of love, hope and inspiration. And that is a very rare and unique ability amongst singers the world over. These ladies sing their lives with an amazing vocal talent that is even the envy of some of the most successful superstars around.