Ed Du Bois, IslandHome, Records: Welcome Page
Yes, that's me on the porch of My Island Home in South Bimini Bahamas. Look hard you can see me. Use your imagination because that's what music and this website is all about. The picture was painted by my friend Al Labanca. He travels the world painting watercolors of lighthouses and marine scenes. I commissioned Al to provide the artwork on my CDs. He painted the back cover of Albums 1 and 2 and did the front and back covers of album 3. I hope that you enjoy them.
Now back to the porch. It is 7 A.M. and the sun is just starting to light up the sky on the east side of South Bimini. Just to my southeast fluorescent pink rays of first light have accented telltale ripples of feeding bone fish in Nixon's Harbour. To my west less than a mile away is the Gulf Stream with its deep purple hue. The kaleidoscope of colors dance non-stop in the sky and on the ocean as the sun continues its arch toward the West.
I've just had breakfast with a couple of my favorite Biminite friends Crowbar and his girlfriend Eshelean. Crowbar is one of the best divers in the Bahamas, and happens to be a great cook as well. He is fifty, lives in Buccaneer Point and like most Biminites he is known by one name. Crowbar got his name from that harder-than-steel right arm that hangs off of his chiseled body. Years of spear fishing and conching will do that to a man. By the way Crowbar has never lost an arm wrestling match and is nearly unbeatable at Ring Toss. But don't get me wrong he's not brutish by any means. His face reminds me of a young Jay Silverheels and when he sings you hear Johnny Mathis with island DNA in his blood. Eshelean is from Nassau. She is forty five, a dancer and beautiful. They prepared a great breakfast of local favorites, Stewed Fish Nassau Style, Car-La-Loo & Rice, Johnny Cakes and Coffee. Oh my, we are happy now!
Crowbar and Eshelean raided my CD cabinet and have been blasting the tunes all morning. I have no neighbors except the ocean so we can let-her-rip. They've been playing all of my favorites from island legends like Blind Blake Higgs, Marley, Irving Burgie, Eric Minns, Stevie S, to Van Morrison, Yo-Yo-Ma and country. They just finished playing one of my all time favorites Feels So Right by Alabama.
This kind of morning usually stimulates some music of our own. Crowbar plays a mean bass guitar and Eshelean plays the conga drums like she owns them. We'll get to that in time, but right now we have to finish our coffee and check out a new turtle nest on the beach right below us. Crowbar and I will check out the nest while Eschlean gets the kitchen ready for lunch and it really sounds good, Out Island Style Crawfish Chowder with Pigeon Peas and Rice and Lemon Grass Tea.
The mission of this website is to build a site where independent musicians like Crowbar, Eshelean, and I can get our music out there to be heard and hopefully bought. Just like the music that they played at breakfast our music is not genre specific. We play a lot of different stuff and write a lot of different stuff. The Big Music Companies don't like that so we will do our own. We call our music Island Pop. It is music that we write after a great island breakfast or music we write on our way to an island or leaving an island. It is music that we write after drinking a cold Kalik beer, or maybe right before drinking a cold Kalik beer. You may hear country overtones, calypso, reggae, pop or rock. A melody that makes us feel good, makes us cry - Island Pop!
This is a project that was born out of desperation! Several years ago I had been baby sitting for my grand daughter Carolyn for several days and I was about brain dead. We had just come home from a rough lunch and I got my guitar out to calm my nerves. I played some cords and Carolyn and I began singing about the lunch that we had just suffered through and before long we had a song, Only Dancin'. After that the songs kept coming. If a name or topic or place moves me I can do it. I drift off a little, try some cords, try some words and try some non-words and it starts to happen. Once I have the song I must make a quick recording of it because a new song is ephemeral. When you first create a song you really get into it. You are enthusiastic, you're emotional and you think that you will never forget it. But a new song is like a firefly it burns bright for a moment and then it is gone. Sometimes you can get it back but usually it is gone forever. I have lost many songs thinking that I would wait until tomorrow to write it down or record it, but there will be more.
This is a collection of my songs. I really never intended to commercialize them. The songs just came out with little effort. But as the catalog grew it became cumbersome - too many songs. Then I did a quick study of the digital world out there for musicians. Things got easier. The digital world is heaven for an independent singer/songwriter. With my laptop, Music Jukebox, DiscMakers, HostBaby, and CDBaby and a little hard work I was up and running with my own CDs. Even better they were up on a web site for the world to see!
Anyway here it is. My web site, with my CDs, my vocals, my guitar, my drum machine and my songs. I hope you enjoy the music. If it moves you and you want to take it home, buy it. Thanks.