A melody I made and set against scenes from a recent trip in May 2013 to my home town of NYC with some friends, starting off the day like a tourist with a boat trip to the Statue of Liberty, past the famous skyline of Lower Manhattan, a "pilgrimage" to Strawberry Fields and to The Dakota at Central Park West (home of the late John Lennon), then at last culminating in a fantastic concert at the illustrious Beacon Theatre on Broadway and West 75th Street. We saved the best for last.

Save It For Last

My own version of the melody taken from the song "Irene Goodnight", originally written by Huddie William Ledbetter ("Lead Belly"), to celebrate the welcomed departure of Hurricane Irene from the Eastern US seaboard on Aug 28, 2011. Good riddance! 

The full video featuring this melody can be viewed at http://vimeo.com/28269029.

Irene Goodnight - A Melody

This song was only performed live back in 2004 by Regina Spektor, who at that time was playing the small club, cafe, and coffee house circuit in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and other small venues in and around the city. This song is hauntingly beautiful and invokes such intense and deep emotion. While I'm not insistent on nostalgia, I echo the desire of many others who long to see her perform this song again live in concert one day.

Regina Spektor - "Loveology"

An original melody I wrote with a title that has little to do with the images in the video, but I like the photos anyway. They were taken by me on a trip to Niagara Falls a few years ago and sort of fit into the mood and tempo of the song. Actually, I titled the song after some random lyric lines that were in my head after I finished recording it. The line is somewhat the motto of my life as I see it sometimes. Go figure!

(Recorded using a Tascam DP-03 Digital Portastudio, Fender Telecaster, Fender Acoustasonic Jr DSP amplifier, M. Hohner blues harp, and my two hands.)

Someday I'll Get It Right

The wonderful feeling of being free to express oneself in music is truly an amazing thing today. I feel free like a butterfly who has emerged out of its cocoon in which it had lain for a long, long while.


Free as a Butterfly

I literally wrote this song on the fly 49 freakin' years ago (I can't believe all that time has flown by so fast) while making somewhat hasty reel-to-reel tape demo recordings in my friend's Brooklyn living room in 1970.  I found a copy lying around at home and thought I'd put it up here.  It was my attempt to sing lead here after my band's break-up where I played bass and mostly sang backup vocals.  I also played rhythm guitar while my younger brother (almost 17 years old at the time) played lead guitar, my former band member was on slide guitar, and yet another former band member was on drums. We overdubbed my bass part and my friends's faint slide guitar on an added track.  If you hear influences of Canned Heat, Chuck Berry, the Rolling Stones, it was no accident. My brother and I were  a little nostalgic and drew upon those we greatly admired for inspiration to come up with a song.

"Confidential Love"

Exploring beneath the azure waters of Grand Cayman Island and of Aruba is a breathtaking experience. An abundance of wonderful life can be found there, in ... the deepest blue.

The Deepest Blue

As destructive that it might become, we do have to marvel at the beauty and the power of an approaching storm, especially when we see a way to endure through it. Such is true of life.

The Beauty of the Storm

Simultaneously recording an instrumental with the sounds of robin nestlings on a tree right outside my living room window as a backdrop.

The Nestlings

In many ways my 2012 was filled with bittersweet romance ... as in the case of my love affair with the warm trade winds and the azure blue Caribbean sea of Aruba. It's a hard place from which to depart.

Bittersweet Romance

Sleepy Time

This was the first of 2 demos cut of a song I was tinkering with that was recorded in the spur of the moment in the drummer's parent's living room in Brooklyn, NY in 1970.   I first got the idea of the words and melody in a dream I had, which as soon as I awoke I grabbed a small handheld cassette tape recorder and my guitar so I wouldn't forget it later.  In it I played rhythm guitar, electric bass, and did the lead vocals. My dear friend from my youth and former band member (who passed away in 2001) played lead guitar and added backup vocals.  Another member of my former band was on the drums. A mutual friend who passed away a few years ago made the recording using a portable 2-track analog tape recorder.
I never aspired to sing lead vocals ... I was usually content to stay in the background and sing the backup harmony parts in the bands where I played the bass. But I gave singing lead a shot anyway ... good, bad or indifferent.

Sleepytime

I grew up in a predominantly Italian-American neighborhood located in the Gravesend section of Brooklyn, NY.  I started playing music in basement/garage bands at the age of about 14, and continued active in the pursuit of a musical career until about the age of 21. Played at dances, "battles of bands", etc when I was a young teen; local clubs around NYC as I got older; did some studio recording, and then auditioned at major record labels such as Mercury Records, Columbia Records, and United Artists.  Took a long, but unplanned sabbatical due to living life in general. But now I'm back, and I ain't over yet.

Tony Caracappa

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