Deborah's Story 4/16/2003

I was conceived April first in Chicago and born New Year’s Day in Savannah, Georgia on the Hunter Airforce Base. I tell people I was born at the airport because I saw and heard so many airplanes when I was a baby. My dad was an information officer for the Air Force and my parents actually met at The Medill School of journalism department at Northwestern University. We moved around from base to base from Savannah to Boston and then to Belleville, Illinois before the three of us drove out west in a blue Corvair. We drove to Playa Del Rey, California so that my father could attend the film school at USC.

We lived in the Jungle (the walk streets) down by the beach and that is where I started playing piano and dancing and singing. (Though my mom says that I started singing the day I was born. The other babies in the hospital cried and I didn't. I just held one note for a really long time. In three days, I cried like the other babies). Wehn I was three my aunt sent me a little white organ and I easily and happily picked out melodies by ear. My mom rented piano for me, but my mom thought I was too young for lessons. So I sat on a telephone book and played piano. "Then one day" as my mom tells it, "I went to pick you up from Midtown School. A child in the parking lot ran to me and said, "Come see Deborah!" I went running and there you were, sitting on the telphone book, on the piano bench, playing Beethoven's Fur Elise by ear. With about 40 kids standing around me and teachers awestruck." That's when she realized she had to get me piano lessons. My teacher Meg Campbell was really cool… but that’s a whole ‘nother story.

I went to alternative schools; schools that were created by artistic parents who wanted to explore more of a communal way of learning. Parents were teachers and we learned things like meditation and filmmaking as well as reading, writing and math. During all my formative years (these years included!) my mother sang to me non-stop. She filled my brain with Cole Porter, Frank Sinatra and the best of the best standards ever written. She'd also bring me to the Bijou Theater on Hollywood Blvd. to see every single Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly movie ever made. My mom was also a professional dancer and she and I would dance together. My father played piano, banjo and used to make up funny songs and sing.

We moved to Pacific Palisades when I was nine and that’s around the time that my Dad brought home a Washburn guitar for my mom to play. It was big for me, but I couldn’t keep my hands off of it and it is the main guitar I play today. You can see it in photos around my site.

I tap danced, recorded and sang my way through high school and when I got to U.C. Berkeley I explored African drumming. The drumming is what led me straight into the songwriting. I find it fascinating that a drum can talk. Songwriting is all about the buzz of communication. Writing my first songs was (and still is) like a part of my soul waking up in some kind of magical world. Most of my songs feel like they are already written and it is for me to remember them. It’s cool. I started writing songs in 1982.

I graduated from Cal with a degree in sociology, a brown belt in karate and the determination to pursue a career in music. I returned to L.A. and played timbales and really got into dancing and painting. I began teaching piano in L.A. as well as putting bands together and playing around town. I traveled around the world with my guitar both writing, performing and teaching. So many amazing people I have met… so many interesting stories to tell.

So, I tell my stories through my songs: songs of reflection, humor, love, loss and transcending from one place to another. Everything changes. Nothing is static. To me, it feels like the music just comes out. I try not to get in the way. I believe that everyone can sing and play and that everyone has stories to tell. I keep myself inspired by committing to my authenticity and just doing it. It is my hope that when you hear my songs, you will be inspired to pick up a guitar, a paintbrush or go to a dance class or book a trip to Laos; to live now and participate in this grand adventure called life.

Thanks for visiting and come back again soon,