Today we’d like to introduce you to Carol Tatum.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Carol. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
The “Exodus” movie soundtrack and “Green Onions” by Booker T & The MGs were songs that changed my life, songs that sparked the first fires of my love for music. What do they have in common? Intensity, power and passion, elements that continue on in my music to this day. How did my journey start?
I was born in Dallas, Texas at a time when you could leave your bicycle on the lawn and no one would steal it. When I was six years old, my grandfather had a jumbo body acoustic guitar under his bed and I would pull it out, place it on my lap and play it like a mountain dulcimer. I was hooked. My music-loving mother bought my sister and I an acoustic guitar, a Spanish guitar and a twelve string guitar and I struggled to build my callouses. I HAD to build them because I HAD to play music. Because I loved it. Not playing music was not an option so this little blonde Texas girl struggled through the pain and pressed on.
In junior high, I spent time in my room practicing and learning how to write songs and listening and analyzing what made songs successful. Then Led Zeppelin. My life changed at the molecular level. Finally, a band that reflected my soul.
My father was an executive at MCA Records during the “golden” years of the music business. I got to attend the album release party for Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” when I was in junior high. I graduated high school and had a short stint in the medical field because I thought “I should have a backup plan.” That didn’t last long. Because music beckoned. Like a siren.
I quit the medical field and moved to Los Angeles in 1980. I worked for the music manager of the Bus Boys and for managers/attorneys Steve Drimmer and Alan Kovac, who managed early Motley Crue at the time. I also worked at a large law firm in Century City when former Vice President of A & R for Columbia Records Alan Mintz was still an associate. I adored Alan and he patiently and happily let me pick his brain and I learned a lot, all while continuing to play electric guitar in bands and continue to write songs. RIP dear Alan.
For the next decade, I struggled playing electric guitar with my band. We played The Whiskey, The Troubador, etc., and then “pay-to-play” reared its ugly head. This was during the days of Pat Benatar and Heart, a time when women were accepted mainly as vocalists and not guitarists/composers. One night at a gig at FM Station in North Hollywood, I met vocalist Lenny Wolf from the band Kingdom Come. We had great creative chemistry and I ended up writing lyrics for two of his Polygram albums “Hands of Time” and “Bad Image.” It was then that I became a published writer and now am an ASCAP member and hold almost one hundred copyrights.
Having played electric guitar in bands for ten years and finally turned down by a record label, I threw the guitar in the closet and took a break. Then, two years later, I picked up my mandolin again and played in a group with a harpist and recorder player. One day the harpist asked me if I wanted to buy one of her harps. I bought the harp, which sat in my living room for a year. Then one day I sat down to see what this instrument was all about…and I fell in love! From that moment on, harp became my main instrument.
I recruited a flutist and cellist and formed a neoclassical group called Angels Of Venice. I financed our first CD in 1993, which is still selling to this day. I met my engineer, Florian Ammon (Quincy Jones, Van Halen, Rammstein), in 1996 and recorded my second CD, “Awake Inside A Dream,” on the prototype for E Magic’s Logic using digital and ADAT tape. It was a wonderful time again!
It was “Awake Inside A Dream” that would catch the attention of Windham Hill Records, who called me and offered me a record deal over the phone. I was thrilled!
Florian Ammon and I recorded and released Angels Of Venice’s debut Windham Hill Records CD of the same name – “Angels Of Venice” – and the group hit the road touring the east and west coasts. Everything was going great! We were playing amazing venues, playing great shows with standing ovations, getting airplay and then… Napster.
Napster destroyed the record business. I watched the music business and powerful music executives slowly being destroyed, like watching a house sliding off the side of a cliff in slow motion. It was an agonizingly horrible time for everyone and something that we are still feeling the effects of to this day.
But you have to keep going. After the demise of my record label, I released three more self-financed CDs (“Carol Tatum: Music For Harp,” “Angels Of Venice: Sanctus” and “Carol Tatum: Ancient Delirium”). Those albums are still sold around the world thankfully with “Primitive Kiss” from my Ancient Delirium CD getting almost 250,000 views on YouTube.
About 25 years ago, I discovered medieval music, termed “early music.” All along, in the back of my mind, it was always my plan to record an album of these beautiful, ancient songs that I would tenderly and painstakingly select from my huge collection of early music CDs (I had, in fact, recorded two medieval songs on my Windham Hill album, a precursor of things to come).
In 2014, I moved back home to Texas. We always go home, don’t we? I knew it was finally time to bring this early music project to life, which would be a labor of love. I recruited recorder player Cornell Kindernaucht and cellist Pearce Eisenbach to create Dallas Early Music Ensemble. We are currently in the studio recording and will have our first show in the Fall.
It has been a long and winding road full of elation and tears, a journey of struggles and triumphs. And all of those feelings go right into the music. As it has been said before, it takes a whole lifetime to write a song. Just keep going. And never give up.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.angelsofvenice.com
- Phone: 818-433-2221
- Email: caroltatummusic@yahoo.com
Image Credit:
Paul Zollo
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