https://albanyparkwirephoto.bandcamp.com

It was Christmas Day, Two Thousand and Ten, and I was to catch a flight to Chicago that night to meet KT for the first time…but a storm was coming. So… I changed the flight to an earlier one, arranged a car, and beat a path to Newark. I wasn’t going to get stuck. If I did that might have changed everything. It was a crazy thing. We had been having a relationship on the phone starting around Thanksgiving. I knew this was it. She was the one. I told her I felt like I knew her since we were kids.

I first fell in love with her words on a screen…her humor, her wit, her passion for music and poetry. I then fell in love with her voice. A soft Midwestern accent with a hint of imagined Irish brogue. We had made a strong long distance connection and we knew we had to meet in person…so I packed a small bag and grabbed my guitar, as I was to play a show with our mutual good friend and great Chicago musician Lou Hallwas later that week, and made it out just in time. As a matter of fact I came to know KT through Lou.

On the other end of that flight was the love of my life, Kathleen, standing next to her black Rav 4 that she named Betty and that I drive still. Long curly locks… tall, skinny, and beautiful. The 3 E pick up spot at O’Hare would be our meeting place every other week for eight months. Then… on the last day of August we married. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Our life together was intense. We were pretty much glued to the hip for 5 years. There was a lot of laughing and a fair amount of crying too. KT was a writer. She was also the funniest and sexiest person I’ve ever known. I am a songwriter so it was natural that we fell into writing together and we had a blast doing it. Papers strewn all over our North Saint Louis apartment living room. Late night vocal sessions with our dog Stax curled up next to our feet. I could go on, and I probably will in future writing, but for now I will just leave you with this and a record I am very proud of. I know KT was very proud of it too.

So in honor of my beautiful wife… Kathleen White… who left this plane on her 48th birthday, August 29, 2016, I release these 9 songs by Albany Park Wirephoto titled “Random Acts of Commandment,” which we wrote and produced together in our apartment in Albany Park, Chicago, Illinois.

Merry Christmas.

MT

https://albanyparkwirephoto.bandcamp.com