Life at the speed of light-Making the Journey
Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008
So you found me! My name is Johnny Chandler and I was born and raised in northeast Alabama! Somehow I have managed to spend most of my 32 years in the beautiful state. It could be the great white clouds and beautiful rolling hills that keep me here. I lived in Jacksonville Alabama for 7 years and have managed to make it back! I spent almost a year in Nashville living off of West end near Vandy. Let me tell you Nashville was a trip and I can’t believe I made it through drunkville! I worked in Printers’s Alley as a fill in sound guy and worked at Sammy T’s in Huntsville Alabama at the time! After Nashville I made it to Birmingham for 3 years and decided that I needed to get my ducks in a row and get with reality.
So I made it back to Jacksonville and can’t say enough for the beautiful area that surrounds this little southern town. Not much has changed since I left except for all the new restaurants and they are even building a new hotel! The old Wal-Mart is now a thrift store and the new Wally world is the busiest thing in town.As I drive down the street and head to the square a sudden flashback of my younger days hits me like a rocket! Did I really work at Brother’s Bar for 5 years; did I transcend space and time to make it back to where I started my Pro college days?It is hard to believe that I am living in the same apartment complex as I lived for 7 earlier. I stumble through my apartment in dark only to find the path I took once before had taken a million times. Not much has changed in the old neighborhood, still the same manager and the same road bumps and the same sunset!I sit now reflecting back on my older days and wonder where I went wrong and where I went right. I have managed to bea Pro Freelance audio engineer working on 100,000 consoles with world-class talent to a closet songwriter popping up at random open mics and giving it all my soul. I managed to step on the stage with some of greatest artist of our time in the Birmingham area.Just recently I have felt the urge to play more and keep pursuing the recording. I have also felt that I have jumped to the other side of writing and style. I can’t wait to record the songs I have written with my friends and enjoy the journey.The last recording artist I recorded is doing very well and people love his tracks. I am so high on life and can’t wait to lay some more tracks from Tedd Tedder.I have also been talking to a couple of people about doing some duos and I am about to start playing out again. What can I say I am hooked! I would compare the feeling of playing to great crowd as jumping off a mountain side wall with a rope! It is the most awesome feeling in the world.I had been watching people play for 12 years and had to find out what it felt like! It was a drive that I could not control and still feel the urge to hit the stage. Life is all stages, which we face, and every day brings a new stage to play, what will be your song?Lately I have felt that life is moving at the speed of light and I am heading through the haze with my eyes wide open. I have been looking back from childhood as a kid working in the chicken houses with my uncle to working for the group Alabama when I was 16.Most of my childhood I spent running from roosters wanting to spur me to fishing before school on cold fall mornings. I hung out with the cool wild country kids that liked to dip and thought fishing and cattle were the way. We call them good old country boys in Alabama.I spent many afternoons riding the tractor cutting the field for watermelons, squash, peppers, green beans, tomatoes, and every other veggie you can think of! I watched my uncles cows grow old and watched as the fence fell with age. I even got to pick bell pepper for a short time when I was around 12, nothing like grabbing a rotten one!I would wake up around 5 every morning and go with my dad so he could open and run the Chandler store. I would often crawl in the back and fall back to sleep before I had to be up for school. I got to see all the people come and go and sat and wondered where they were all going and doing.I sat on that old green bench for years learning how to play guitar and watched the sunset and the cars go up and down the road. My dad bought a minnow tank and we had minnows for a bit until the motor broke and then I used to beat on it uncle it drove my uncle Terry crazy, I am sure he still remembers!I had a great childhood and being a punk kids didn’t see this until recently. Growing up in rural Alabama has been an awesome and inspiring experience for me. Within fifteen minutes I could be to 4 waterfalls and had Guntersville State Park, Buck’s Pocket, High Falls, Griffin Falls and Little River canyon just across the valley from me.I could not dream of a more magical place to grow up and go to high school. We would camp on town creek and laughed through night as we sipped the drink we got from the bootlegger down in section. I also spent many morning watching the sun come up over Guntersville Lake and watching the cranes looking for fresh food.
I dream that one day I can sit at that camping space and watch that same sun go down over the water. I can taste the fresh grilled pancakes melting in my mouth as the waves crash in and shells wash ashore. One day I am hoping to find that message in a bottle to return to me, until then I will keep looking! Thanks for reading more to come soon!
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