Dead Music Career Fuels Fledgling Writing Career

Some of you know that years ago I used to step up to microphones wearing my Fender Mustang bass on a purple strap and announce, “I am Regina Rodríguez and I sing songs I made up out of my own head.” For many years writing and performing songs was the main way I coped with depression, loneliness and general low self-esteem. Between 1998 and 2007 I wrote a lot of songs and did a lot of singing. I even developed a small (tiny) Chicago fan-base.

But in 2006 I fell in love with a man named Bob who would become my husband, and my loneliness and low self-esteem began to lift. In 2008 I stopped needing the music altogether and my music adventure came to an end. I now realize songwriting was mainly therapeutic and not a true vocation for me. (You can find posts that refer to my gigs if you look on the 2004 and 2005 pages of my blog.)

Since then the originals that I professionally recorded have been sitting on my computer doing nothing. I’ve mostly ignored my former life as a singer and turned my focus to writing, but now I’m finally going to release my first and only album (but only as a digital download). My friend and New York jazz musician Robert Cowie mastered the songs and I hired a designer from www.fiverr.com to throw a cover together. Watch this space for details on how to purchase Regina Rodríguez-Martin’s one and only downloadable album. In post-modern style, I’m announcing the end of my singing career at the same time that I present the beginning of it.

Why now? Because I hope to use this album to help fund the self-publication of my dog ebook. I’m basically using my dead music career to launch my incipient author career. What is my music like? Here’s the best description I can come up with: folk-pop-jazz influenced songs written by a woman who meant every word. The instrumentation is vocals, guitar, bass and sometimes percussion. I wrote many of these songs when I was at my most depressed and lonely. Those are the most cheerful ones because I used songwriting to get myself to think more positively (it didn’t work). They have names like “The Penguin Song,” “Happy Are We” and “I Like Life.” Others are moodier and more introspective, such as “Going of Age,” “Before a Dream Is Realized” and “An Atheist’s Prayer.”I’m still uploading songs and getting my e-album ready for sale, but I’ll let you know as soon as I have a link where you can order. I’ve named the album This Is My Going of Age because many of these are the songs of a middle-aged woman struggling with spirituality, self-image, relationships and the decision to live single.

My blog readers, thank you SO MUCH for reading my blog and supporting me just by being there. I hope you can also consider purchasing my music not because it’s so great, but because it will finance my true dream of writing and publishing.

Isn’t it funny: I’m finally getting my music out into the world when I what I really want to do now is write ebooks. For a long time I didn’t think anyone would want to hear my original songs, much less pay for them, so I never released a CD. Only now that my ego is completely unattached to this music, and I want to raise cash for publishing, am I able to reveal it. I worked hard to create the lyrics and music for these original songs, paying out-of-pocket for musicians, transcriptions and recordings. And of course I made nothing on my performances. Now my songs are going to work for me!

(Update: find my songs on Apple Music and Spotify).