He just acted on what came to him – as he lived in a dream of what he wished would happen.
Johnny Dock never had a detailed plan for success. He didn’t have a schedule of events that he dreamed would happen. No kind of plan was written down in a notebook step-by-step. It was all intuitive for him. He just acted on what came to him as he lived in the dream of what he wished would happen. He was born on the stage of a 1729-year-old stone pub along the banks of the Delaware river. His birthday suit was wearing a pair of snakeskin boots, worn blue jeans, T-shirt, under a fine, black Italian suit coat. Instead of crying, he came out singing – writing songs about a former life. I guess you could say he was reincarnated.
He loved to perform and jumped at every chance he got to play on the same stage that he was born on. He often wandered down to the water banks of the Delaware river and sat on the dock that inspired his name – that was where he began visualizing a path to the future. It was a road less traveled, a road only dreamed of. It was a road that took him over, to mystical towns, meeting with whimsical people. Listening to their stories, filled him with the anticipation that comes in the dawn of the fulfillment of a dream.
He had little time for the common life. He couldn’t keep a job or stay in one place. He hired some of these mystic, whimsical characters to make movies of him and film events of his presiding moments. He gathered the musically talented around that would join him in playing and performing his songs. He would either whisper his music to the weary of spirit or shout it to the ones who had a lust for celebration.
He would quote Shakespeare:
| If music be the food of love, play on; Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die. That strain again! it had a dying fall: O! it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound That breathes upon a bank of violets, Stealing and giving odour. (Twelfth Night, 1.1.1-7 |
RECORDING THE FUTURE
Gathering the musically talented he brought them to his German style, Pennsylvania Dutch farmhouse that was built at the turn of the 19th century. Johnny commissioned a wizard of technology from the musical realm to record songs he had been writing. They set up recording main base equipment in a pub that he had built that mirrored the pub he had been born in. It was next to the farmhouse where they ran cables, microphones, and equipment into the great room of the farmhouse to capture the sounds. Musical magic was made and three days later they had the essence of the songs.
Once they were mixed and rendered, the next step, took Johnny and the recordings into the big city where he had them mastered. This experience open many doors for him and stimulated his imagination where he brought his filmmaker friends to make music
videos of him singing songs on the streets of the big city even to the section where world money was traded.
The idea had come to throw a big concert event where he could not only record the experience of people engaging in hearing him sing his songs but also record the event on audio and film. The staged production captured the event and preserved it in the timeless dimension of technology. It was there that the dream in the vision began to expound.
He met with both princes and jesters of the musical kingdom in the big city. There they discussed his vision and began to map out a plan.
MANY CHANGING SHADOWS
Then as fate would have it, a violent and overwhelming storm came. The kind that would alter the direction of ships or sink them.
he was lost at sea it ravaged his dreams and forced him into exile. It was there that he remained isolated and alone for 10 years.
And he could never stop. Music continues to flow from the bowels of his soul. He could never hold back his desire to cry out to those in need or express his own despair of loss.
Around him yet there were no ears to hear or eyes to see.
While there’s time – There’s life and Johnny’s still got time.
A good friend that has left time Johnny misses dearly also a lover of Shakespeare wrote this for the Johnny Dock – Crossing the River record: Richard
Wandering rivers and currents from the River Grand, N’Orleans haunts and up the coast to the Delaware, conscience hurting in the moment freedom or fear. Pulled by a mule barge… message clear, to Washingtons crossing, guitar in hand. Alone broke and always in hock, they gathered around to hear the words of Johnny Dock.
