What do I know about the blues?
"It's been a long hard road," says Doug. His newest recording, Are You Addicted, is more personal than his last (At Least I Had a Life). The current CD features 10 new tunes - 8 exciting originals and 2 outstanding covers. When recently asked what he knew about the blues, Doug gave this candid reply:
"What do I know about the blues? Let me explain it to you this way. When you wake up on a steel bed in the county bucket (jail) to the Salvation Army playing out ot tune Christmas carols and the inmates are throwing towels and ashtrays at them, and a judge has just recently told you that you were a "menace to society and a menace to yourself" while denying you bail, at that point in your life the blues is just about all you've got."
There have been some bumps along the recovery road. Like the murder he witnessed of his friend in a Port Hope bar. The raising of his two boys as a single father (both appear on this recording), The demons, the addictions.
"Music saved me" he says. But I"m not out of the woods yet. Everyday is a battle. But at least I'm still here. So many of my friends didn't make it..."