Darby's Life and Music journey

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I've been singing and performing since I was a small child... as far back as I can remember.

I have fond memories of singing to my Mom and Nana, and they'd applaud and scream wildly after each song. So what was a child to do? Sing some more, of course, until I finally had to be told to "be quiet". There was never any question as to what I'd do when I grew up. It was just innate in me to perform... in the blood, as they say.

My Great, Great Grandparents (on my Moms side) were trapeze artists in the circus, and my Great Grandparents, Vaudvillians. My Nana grew up on the road with her Vaudvillian parents. She was part of the act while she was growing up. Later, she was a singer/dancer and actress. My Mom was voluptuous: blonde, blue eyed. A real knock-out. She was the most beautiful lady I had ever seen, a Marilyn Monroe look alike, only more beautiful! She was a dancer and an actress too.

On my Fathers side, my Grandmother was an opera singer and my Grandfather played the French Horn. My Father was a singer too. He was twenty years older than my mom. He'd been called "The Singers Singer" by Frank Sinatra himself. He made quite a few albums starting back in the 1940's.

So as you can see, I came by my profession honestly. I just knew what I had to do and then I found a way to do it. I could never see my self doing anything else, and so... I didn't.

I started out in a 6 piece band when I was sixteen, playing any club that would pay us. God knows I paid some hard dues in those clubs. Some of them were brutal.

Then I started playing some of those elite dinner houses up and down the coast in California. The environment was much nicer and the pay was a lot better. I kept on writing my own music and looking for new opportunuties to try to get signed with a major record label and make my own records. I was as close as you can get so many times. I had it in the palm of my hand, so to speak. What I found is that just as easily as it's given, it can be taken away. I had disappointment after disappointment. Sometimes I was just bewildered and it was so hard to pick myself back up each time. For whatever the reason, be it me or someone else, not being able to realize your dreams is a hard thing to swallow, especially after working so long and so very hard. I wondered if success, as I imagined it, could be even found. I was born in Hollywood and grew up in Los Angeles and Orange County.

I'm a true California girl. To this day I've a hard time wearing shoes. I love the beach, my toes in the sand, gazing at the incredible sunsets, that lovely smell of the sea air. I love California. I left for the first time in 1992 to move to Seattle. Beautiful there, but boy is it depressing when you're used to the California sunshine. I had an incredible band there called "Darby and the Distraction." Some of the best players in the Seattle area. I stayed there until I moved to Nashville in 1996.

I spent five years in Nashville with some successes and some failures. I was being shopped around, trying to get a record deal. I got kicked around a bit, chewed up and pretty much spit out. Then a true miracle happened... I changed my view, my perspective on some things. I realized that being successful didn't have to fringe solely upon me getting a "big" recording contract. It could be as simple as being true to what my talents are, being honest enough with myself and others around me to write my experiences in song and then record and produce them, with my own money in a cool little "artsy" studio in Nashville. Along with having my own website, I could start touring around and sell a few copies with any luck. It felt like I was finding a place in the world finally. So I started writing down every thought, every experience, past and present. The result has been some of the best work I've ever done. (You can buy the CD on this website).

One of my great friends who's the owner of "Coffeehouse Studios" in Nashville, TN. (where the first half of this CD was recorded) encouraged me to quit trying to live up to everybody else's expectations... of what they thought I should be, and what and how I should sing and look like... and to start thinking about what I wanted to say as an artist, and how I wanted people to see me. Well the words started flowing, lyric after lyric. I bought myself a "Big Baby Taylor" guitar and started writing, without stopping, I had so much to say and so much to share.

I wanted my life to be an open book that people could see into and connect with somehow: lessons in love and hope. Above all, I prayed they would be inspired to keep moving forward on their journey's. For the first time in my life, I felt like I was doing what I had always dreamed of doing. The success I was trying to achieve all of those years was now right in front of my eyes. It looked different than what I expected, but was in front of me nonetheless.

By this time, Nashville had taken up quite enough of my life and it was time for me to go back to my roots and my home... to California. So... here I am, so very close to the ocean and the sunsets, in Orange County, CA. I'm writing and finishing the album up as I write this Bio. I hope that it moves you and inspires you, but mostly that it brings the wonderful and sometimes obscure gift of hope. I truly believe there is ALWAYS hope and grace to be found around the next corner!

I, myself, have taken so many road detours, u-turns, hitting dead ends and hanging from cliffs by a weathered thread, and it seems I'm still trying to find my little place in the world. What I have discovered, is that just when you think you have arrived at your destination, you find out otherwise and you get moved to the back of the line, so it really is a constant seeking. A constant position of choice...either walk through the fear (which is the meaning of courage in my eyes) or to crawl in a deep well and die. My preference is NOT the latter!

In many ways I will always be searching, and with that little seed of hope, growing through each new experience. It's funny to think about how I thought I knew everything as a teenager. As I got older, it felt as though I was really learning and becoming wiser for it. Now it seems the more I know, the less I understand it all. Strange dichotomy.

Even so, I still would not change anything about my particular journey, as it has woven all together to make a tapestry of sorts, and I have two beautiful children, Aubrey and Myles, who are the joy in my step. The love I feel for them keeps me going forward and helps me to stay focused on what I must do. Thank God for my kids!

If asked, "Would you change anything about your life" I say, "No I would not change a thing, its made me who I am", (and man you can write some cool songs through diversity).

God bless, and much peace, light and love to you and yours.