DC playsthejams.com

Breakthrough the Quarantine Madness

2020 got off to such an amazing start for me! I named this the year of clarity (get it?…20/20). Anyway, it started off with the LSU Tigers completing an improbable season as National Champions after going 15-0! As if that wasn’t enough I was able to attend the AFC Championship game with my son Zach (he’s the one who created the Varry White Music logo!). The Chiefs won a great game at Arrowhead stadium that day and they were going to the Super Bowl for the first time in 50 years. As you probably know- Patrick Mahommes led the Chiefs to the Super Bowl LIV win. I really couldn’t believe how 2020 was falling in place.

After the Super Bowl parade I started wondering what could be next? The Kansas Jayhawks were Number 1 in all the polls…. The Royals (insert hit the breaks sound here)…..Then COVID-19 got real. We all knew things were going down in other parts of the world but we had no idea really what it meant for us here in America. First we were asked to stay home a couple of weeks. That turned into a month, then two. Before we knew it businesses were closing. We couldn’t eat at restaurants. No games. No concerts… WHUUUTT? NO CONCERTS? If we can’t go to concerts, that must mean we can’t play concerts….

I really don’t think we had any idea of what all would be stripped from our normal routines. Most of (code for ALL of) the events we had scheduled to play this spring and this summer were postponed or cancelled.

Enter Eric Griffin. Eric is a music teacher in Olathe, Kansas and a fantastic keyboardist in a group that I get the honor of playing with from time to time called Lester Estelle and Friends. Eric had been creating what I call Zoom videos with other band teachers and putting them on FaceBook. They were really cool and seemed like a great way to connect with people who liked getting out and seeing us live. I call Lester and say, “have you seen these videos Eric is dropping?” he was like “yeah man!” Almost simultaneously we both shout out, “we gotta do one of these!” So we did.Lester contacts Eric- Eric says he was game to do the editing. So we did an actual Zoom call with the band – believe it or not it is the only zoom call I have been on during the pandemic. All the guys were excited to participate and we mapped out a plan, everyone did their own video and audio file, sent them to Eric and he put it all together. We decided to do a song Lester wrote and recorded called “Breakthrough” which is available on iTunes but you can hear it here with one click (you probably should check it out on iTunes also, just sayin)!

So enjoy! Breakthough off the album: Seasons by Lester Estelle featuring: Lester Estelle, guitar Eric Griffin, keyboards Jason Tribbett, bass guitar Antwon Vanoy, drums and ya boi DC, alto sax

Several people asked: Eric used Adobe Premiere to create the video; he used Cakewalk to mix the audio

Videos can be included within Instant Articles to enhance the storytelling experience. Videos can be configured to autoplay, or they can be set up to play after a reader’s tap.