Just another singer-songwriter, trying to save the human species. Or, at the very least, help people feel less alone.
(Much more about me underneath the video links, below.)
My website: https://www.dannyhamilton.net)
Danny's Television Appearance on CMT
Danny Hamilton - I'm Still Here
Danny Hamilton - Love is the Way
Danny Hamilton - It's What You Want (A Vegan Anthem)
Danny Hamilton - Song For My Son
Danny Hamilton - Super Callous, Mad, Sadistic, Sexy & Atrocious
Danny Hamilton - Break Me (Let the Lakota Sing)
Danny Hamilton & Abby Hankins - Dreams Fade to White
Danny Hamilton & Abby Hankins - Pretty Little Poison (Robbie Fulks cover)
Danny’s songs: Danny Hamilton and music as a means of survival
Easy Reader • May 25, 2011 • Mark McDermott
On May 2, 1991, two eighth grade boys embarked on a small adventure. They had decided to bicycle from their homes in Torrance to a shop on Pacific Coast Highway called the Psychic Eye. They were hoping to find a fortune teller.
Fate intervened. A truck bore down full steam on one of the boys, who swerved in front of the vehicle in an attempt to get out of its path. The truck driver cut his wheels sharply, and crashed directly into the other boy.
Danny Hamilton broke both his legs, one of his arms, and cracked the front of his skull. His spleen was ruptured, his ribs broken, and his internal organs generally shaken up.
“I broke a lot of stuff,” Hamilton said. “I was pretty broken.”
Hamilton managed to avoid critical injuries. But he spent nearly a month in a hospital, and doctors thought he might never walk again. When he finally went home, he made a couple discoveries. First, teenage boys don’t generally care for kids in wheelchairs.
“I mean, I actually went back to school for a couple of events…and I kind of realized at that point, ‘Oh, I don’t have any friends,’” he recalled. “Those people I thought were my friends were kind of like, ‘Ewww, a dude in a wheelchair.’ It was pretty crazy. Kids can be cruel.”
His other discovery was an old Vox acoustic guitar that happened to be laying around his house. Since he loved music and he had a lot of time on his hands, he picked it up. His life was forever changed.
“It was like people say – it’s cliché, but it was there for me,” Hamilton said. “You know, it could have just as easily been Nintendo, I guess. And I did play some Nintendo, but really music always affected me very deeply – how music could really speak to you on a level that words alone couldn’t, how you could be alone and suddenly a song comes on that says exactly how you feel at that moment. It’s so powerful.”
Hamilton somewhat miraculously recovered fully and was even able to walk only four months later, but the consequences would be long-lasting – a blood clot in his kidney nearly killed him after his release from the hospital, and he frequently experienced excruciating pain, passing seven kidney stones before he graduated high school.
“It always seemed if I drank a lot or did physical, bouncy activity, it would bounce them loose and start things rolling,” Hamilton said. “So these days I try to stay mellow.”
He continued to play music throughout his teenage years, and even took a stab at songwriting. But his songs took on an unusual, almost spooky quality.
“I had just this boring high school life, so I made things up. I dramaticized things to write about,” Hamilton said. “Those first few songs were fiction, but the strange thing is those fictitious songs all came true. So it really freaked me out – it just kept happening.”
The most portentous of these songs came from a box of apples he spotted in a friend’s garage one day. The apples came from a place called Wheeler’s Ridge. The song Hamilton wrote was centered around a fictionalized tale in which the narrator’s mother was gone and his father was in jail.
The song itself, it turned out, became a fortune teller: when Hamilton was 18, these circumstances tragically came true. His father, disoriented by a mixed dose of anti-depressant and anxiety medication, killed his mother with a butcher knife in the middle of a woeful night. He was later acquitted of murder, but the tragedy threw the family into horrible tumult. Hamilton, who’d just graduated from high school, was entrusted with caring for his 16-year-old sister.
But in an odd twist of fate, at this very same time a trust that had been established with money Danny had been awarded at the time of the truck accident became available.
“That money fed us and put a roof over our heads,” Hamilton said.
That money also allowed him to buy a new guitar. He’d left behind the old Vox when the family’s home was broken up, so he bought a new Takamine guitar. He held onto that guitar for dear life. He began writing songs again, this time as a means to process what he was going through – this time, really, as a means for survival. He wrote a collection of songs that would become his first album, Motherless Child.
“I was very shy, so music became my therapy, especially after my mom died,” Hamilton said. “That is when I really started writing my own songs, really, not made up songs inspired by apples. The guitar became my tool… It kept me centered, really, because when you are that young and vulnerable to have this tragedy – so many kids go down the wrong way, and I’ve seen it happen to tons of kids in high school. I don’t know if it was the music, the guitar, or just a good soul from my mother, who was just like a rock, going through all she went through and never letting us see her sweat. She was just amazing, so I feel fortunate just having a piece of her in me.”
His “Wheeler’s Ridge” song was transformed into “Danny’s Bridge.” The bridge – the key to both his music and his survival, he realized – was his mother. She’d played lap slide guitar and when she was alive he hadn’t fully seen her for who she was. But she would be with him every step of the way as he embarked on his musical journey.
“It’s amazing how self-centered you are when you are young,” Hamilton said. “Your world is so small. Now I wish I could hear her play. ‘Mom, tell me more about you.’ But she always loved to hear me play.”
Hamilton launched a decidedly hand-made musical career. He originally just made CDs for his family and friends, but at their urging, he began playing out. His first gig was at Sponda, a café in downtown Hermosa. He was terrified and pretty sure he was awful.
“People came up afterwards and said the songs and the CD had touched them,” he remembered. “It had helped them. And I started to see my pain can help other people through their pain.”
More songs came. A second CD, Believe, charted his progress as he started to embrace the land of the living again. Other musicians were also taking note of his musical gifts – though entirely self taught, Hamilton possesses a soulful, deep, throaty voice, and he writes with grace and an unassuming wisdom. Bassist Kalin Krum would soon join him, and local legend Teri Hitt would take Hamilton under her wing (her keyboard player, Christopher Lopez, would also later join Hamilton’s band, the Mudslingers).
His fourth record, Where Do I Fit In, was made for a small record label. In his unassuming but persistent way, Hamilton had become a professional musician, and in 2009 Nashville took note – his song “Bury the Devil” finished second in the County Music Television’s Music City Madness contest.
Something else has happened over the years. His songwriting has broadened. His earlier, more self-reflective songs have given way to Rolling Stones-style country romps. He’s still a decidedly mellow man, but Hamilton has learned how to rock n’ roll.
“In the beginning, the songs were emotional and very deep,” he said. “At some point, I started to find the rock inside – the rock n’ roll just came out.”
There is another even more unexpected quality in Hamilton’s music. “Gratitude is heaven,” Aldous Huxley once wrote, and in Hamilton’s music there is a pervasive sense of thankfulness. He has built a community of musicians – check out his YouTube channel’s “Garage Sessions,” which beautifully capture this warm and exuberantly musical scene in a garage in Torrance – and he is joyfully married to his high school sweetheart, Amber. He also has made peace with his father after not speaking to him for eight years. “Forgiveness is freedom,” Hamilton said, explaining in part his approach to this deepest of wounds.
“When I tell people my story, they ask, ‘Why are you so calm and normal?’ Why aren’t you a drug addict or some kind of crazy person?’” Hamilton said. “I don’t know why. But I do know my songs helped me, and music helped me, so if my music can be what other people’s music has been for me – if it can help anyone – that is huge. That is an incredible gift. That is why I keep playing….because I know what it feels like, whether you’ve lost family, or you feel anxiety, or depression, or whatever – the worst part is feeling alone. If I can help anyone feel less alone, that’s all I want. That is what music did for me.”
Welcome! Enjoy the music community here - its vibrant and alive!!
Thank you, Ben!! So excited to be here! :)
Wowsers! So much ear candy in one post! I've only played one song so far (Dreams Fade To White), but figured I'd take a moment to comment. It's amazing! Love the way you and Abby harmonize, and I'm now subbed to your YT channel (as InternetG33k - my alter ego, LOL).
And that article about you is heartbreakingly wonderful. I am so sorry for all the pain you've gone through, but so inspired by how you managed to find the positive side of things.
Oh, and thank you to Serena (@paintingangels) for pointing me in your direction. My VP (voting power) is ridiculously small at the moment, so instead, here's a, Welcome to Steemit - tip!
Traci I just love you, you're so sweet! Thanks for giving Danny such a warm welcome. (Danny, Traci is such a doll, be sure to follow!).
Hugs!💖🦋❤️🌹🌸
via GIPHY
Hi Traci! Thank you so much for your kind words. And thank you so much for the SBD tip! No idea what that is, but I’m grateful for it, and for people like you. :)
You're very welcome, @dannyhamilton! That tip simply means you're wicked awesomesauce, and when Steem's value climbs back up, you might even be able to buy half of a regular coffee with it... 😜
Good luck on your journey. Check out my link to make more money here.
Well, at least the link is legitimate.
Thanks
I'm so happy you're here, brother. 😊 Now we just gotta get Amber to join the party! 🦋
Are you a fan of Bob Dylan?
Not to totally bust in and answer for Danny, but yes :) He is a fan.
Feel free to bust in at any time, Serena! Thank you! :)
Hi @dannyhamilton! You have received 0.1 SBD tip from @traciyork!
Welcome danny
Your #introduceyourself is very nice.
Its All about blogging on this platform and this blockchain. Blogging is it,blog on and you Will be succesfull! 🤛
You Will earn money. 💴💸💰
I blog every day and love it!❤️
Helpfull is the Steemify App its Free in the Appstore go cheque it out. And good luck🍀
Greetings from Brittandjosie - Holland 🇱🇺
Thank you, Brittandjosie! I have never blogged before, so... a blogging I shall go! :)
Can you tell me a story .... YES ? Now write that story down! Put some pictures in the story ... Thats the way I make My blogs do blog on ... I Will read
Welcome Danny !
Thanks Bernard! :)
Welcome to Steemit @dannyhamilton!
I wish you much success and hope you find Steemit to be as rewarding and informative as I have.
Here are some links you might find useful.
Your stats on SteemNow
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How to use Minnow Booster
How does Steemit actually work?
Introbot is hosted and managed with donations from @byColeman to help make your journey on Steemit be truly rewarding. Your feedback is always welcome so that we may improve this welcome message.
Oh yea, I have upvoted you and followed you. Many blessings from @introbot & @bycoleman
welcome to steemit... I hope you are comfortable here
Thank you! Comfy so far... :)
Welcome to steemit,a community for positive people just like you,trust me you'll enjoy every bit of it,It takes patience,commitment,perseverance and dedication to succeed on steemit.you can follow me @donkelly
Thanks so much, Don! A community for positive people!! Count me in. :)
Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by paintingangels (serena) from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, theprophet0, someguy123, neoxian, followbtcnews, and netuoso. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows. Please find us at the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.
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Welcome to steemit! It's an awesome community once you find your way around!
Hi Bec! Seems very awesome so far... Slowly finding my way around, thank you! :)
Welcome to the new wave in social media. It sounds like you've had some really tough times, but I hope it's better now. You really seem to have found your voice in music. You will find lots of musicians and music fans here. I hope they will show you some support.
Hi Steve! Thanks so much for taking the time to read my story, and for your kind words. I'm really excited to get my feet wet and start exploring around here. :)
@stevec resteemed your post and i am glad he did. Your story is really inspiring and i love the song "I am still here"
It resonates with your story and I can relate to it.
Welcome to Steemit!!!!
Hi Ami! Thank you so much for listening, and for your kind words. :)
you are welcome
Wow, welcome to steemit Danny :) Enjoyed listening to the music clips and I'm definitely following ~
Thanks so much, Michael! Really appreciate the kind words and support. :)
Welcome Danny a little bird has told me all I needed to know about you. You are going to love it here, if you are not already get yourself on discord.
Thanks Meno! And thank that little bird for me! :) I am on the Discord... Barely know what I'm doing, but I'm on it! :)
You received a manual upvote from @MusicVoter and people following my Curation Trail due to the musical content of this post.
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