From George's cousin Michael
I
don't have an inspirational quote, I have a whole story
For far to long I was a cynic. A pretty dark 6 years if you ask me. From my early teenage years all I wanted to be was a rock star (or whatever you want to call it). Probably earlier than that, as I can recall using a tennis racket as a guitar and fake playing along to Guns n Roses, Led Zeppelin, and probably Bon Jovi….it was the 80s’. As a teenager I played in bands straight through my mid 20’s, and in those mid 20’s we made a go at it. Going to LA and New York, meeting with a few labels, and really thinking, “this is it”. We were green, but our hopes were sky high that something was going to happen.
Then it didn’t.
My family grew, responsibilities took over, and I bowed out. I started another band after that, but the success I had in the previous band nowhere near translated to this band and I quit again. For 6 years I can tell you that I was pretty bitter and I masked it in realism. If anyone expressed their dream or desires, here I was to let everyone know how unrealistic things were and that without the right, this and that; things were very unlikely to happen. I convinced myself that it was for their own good.
I was wrong and If anyone was at the end of one of my negative rants, I am so sorry.
I tried to refocus my energy in the corporate world and I basically gave up playing music for about 6 years. If you are creative, let me tell you, in my opinion, the corporate world is not the best place. It was suffocating me, and I could never really put my heart into making someone else rich, while I slowly made an extra dollar here and there. Do I really care what the company’s bottom line is? I mean, really care?
Then slowly, but surely, I got back into it. Some bad stuff went down (heartbreak, girls, you know the deal) and I found that I had so many feelings and I didn’t know where to put them other than to songs. I picked up my guitar again and it started bursting out of me, song after song. I have been writing and recording for the last 2 years and I can tell you that it has filled a hole that had grown inside me, because it was always my dream to write and record music and I tried to fight it. It’s all I have ever really wanted to do.
Believe me, there are still challenges to it every single day. As an artist in any capacity, we are more than likely to crave some sort of acknowledgement to what we are doing. Getting strangers to care is, no doubt, a difficult task…… Don’t get me started on friends and family. But doing something because you love it and because it’s in you and you dreamt about it your whole life, is something that should never be ignored. One of the main things that taught me that is my cousin George Donaldson.
George was one of the first people I saw play music at a level I thought was only reserved for people who made it on to MTV. We were at a family cookout and as I would soon learn, everyone wanted George to play. He took out his guitar and started playing Irish songs and I was blown away. This guy was for real. Fast forward a few years later and my brothers and I are in Glasgow Scotland, and we were introduced to pub life. It was during the brit pop era and I thought that I was going to be hanging with Oasis and Pulp songs all night. Little did I know, that the Irish music and pub scene was thriving over there and in the center of it was my cousin Big George. Pubs like Ginty McGintys and Molly Malone’s were his base and he had played a mixture of Irish and Scottish folk (Caledonia, Seven Drunken Nights), more modern stuff like the Pougues (Sally MacLennan, A Pair of Brown Eyes), and you would even hear songs from Oasis and other big UK bands (Wonderwall, Half A World Away). This was before I, myself, had entered the bar scene to play music, and I can admit I was fascinated, star struck, and probably a little jealous all at the same time. He was doing something I wanted to do and doing it so well! I remember one night at Sullivan Station in Boston talking to a girl who said she had spent a lot of time in Glasgow. I thought it was a shot in the dark but I mentioned George and she of course knew him, and had been to see him play on several occasions. It’s not just anyone who is that memorable. I went to Glasgow quite a few times between the years of 1996-2001 and George playing was always one of the highlights of the trip.
Family obligations, and the loss of a job in the travel industry, has kept me here in the United States since 2001 but I always had assumed that nothing would change. George would always be at those bars, playing to his fans, and that when the time came for me to return I would simply head down to Gintys and pickup seeing him where I left off. That was until my father told me in passing that George had scaled back the amount of playing he was doing because he had his family, his wife Carolyn and daughter Sarah, and that he had taken a labor job to provide. This was probably around the time that I had quit my music career and it sort of reaffirmed everything I was thinking all along. There was no point in following your dreams. Dreams don’t come true, those that make it in music, or entertainment, had an “in”, it was fixed, blah blah blah. Then a funny thing happened a few years later. Someone in my immediate family told me George had joined this new group and that they were going to be on television, and touring the world. What? How in the world? George had gone to an audition for an Irish singing group called Celtic Thunder and was asked to join the group. Suddenly, there he is on PBS. He was in Sydney, London, New York and often Boston. He sang at the Pentagon. He opened the St Patrick’s Parade in New York. He was releasing solo albums in addition to the ones Celtic Thunder were releasing. Amazing!
The bottom line is he was doing it. He was living out his dream and it didn’t even start till he was 37 years old. I talked with him about this and he was so happy that he was doing what he always wanted. At a gig here in Boston, last winter, he played a packed room for fans and this is someone who I used to watch at cookouts and pubs in Glasgow. Then I went to see him at the Orpheum in Boston last summer. The Orpheum! A place I had seen Sonic Youth, Bruce Springsteen, Blur, and countless others. He even shouted out my brother and I from the stage! He had really done it and it was all because he never gave up what he loved.
I figured I would see George this year again as he routinely played Boston on tour and we would have a few pints and tell a few jokes, and celebrate his success. That was until my father called last night to tell me the devastating news that George, had a sudden heart attack and died. How could this be? He didn’t seem unhealthy, what could have happened? I am still in shock. People die every minute and it’s sometimes so random and unexpected, what are we to think? This is the exact moment where all those clichés and inspirational quotes you see on social media these days come into focus. Follow your dreams, don’t waste a day, tell everyone you love that you love them, if there is a will there is a way, etc etc. George Donaldson epitomized these quotes because he never did stop believing in his dream, and when opportunity came he seized it. There are no words I can offer my cousins, friends, and fans of his that would make the pain any less that what it is, but to know someone has touched the lives of others, is hopefully, in time, consoling. I wont even get into here what a great guy he was, in addition to his phenomenal talent, because you would have had to have met him to really know, but it cant go without saying that he was.
So thank you George for the inspiration to keep going and never give up. You showed the cynic in me, that clichés are not all false hope for the insecure, but words that were said because they had, and still do, mean something. I will always use George’s influence in my life, because he did it.
This isn’t a story about someone famous, that I don’t know. This is my family.
Rest in peace George.
Love your cousin Michael.
For far to long I was a cynic. A pretty dark 6 years if you ask me. From my early teenage years all I wanted to be was a rock star (or whatever you want to call it). Probably earlier than that, as I can recall using a tennis racket as a guitar and fake playing along to Guns n Roses, Led Zeppelin, and probably Bon Jovi….it was the 80s’. As a teenager I played in bands straight through my mid 20’s, and in those mid 20’s we made a go at it. Going to LA and New York, meeting with a few labels, and really thinking, “this is it”. We were green, but our hopes were sky high that something was going to happen.
Then it didn’t.
My family grew, responsibilities took over, and I bowed out. I started another band after that, but the success I had in the previous band nowhere near translated to this band and I quit again. For 6 years I can tell you that I was pretty bitter and I masked it in realism. If anyone expressed their dream or desires, here I was to let everyone know how unrealistic things were and that without the right, this and that; things were very unlikely to happen. I convinced myself that it was for their own good.
I was wrong and If anyone was at the end of one of my negative rants, I am so sorry.
I tried to refocus my energy in the corporate world and I basically gave up playing music for about 6 years. If you are creative, let me tell you, in my opinion, the corporate world is not the best place. It was suffocating me, and I could never really put my heart into making someone else rich, while I slowly made an extra dollar here and there. Do I really care what the company’s bottom line is? I mean, really care?
Then slowly, but surely, I got back into it. Some bad stuff went down (heartbreak, girls, you know the deal) and I found that I had so many feelings and I didn’t know where to put them other than to songs. I picked up my guitar again and it started bursting out of me, song after song. I have been writing and recording for the last 2 years and I can tell you that it has filled a hole that had grown inside me, because it was always my dream to write and record music and I tried to fight it. It’s all I have ever really wanted to do.
Believe me, there are still challenges to it every single day. As an artist in any capacity, we are more than likely to crave some sort of acknowledgement to what we are doing. Getting strangers to care is, no doubt, a difficult task…… Don’t get me started on friends and family. But doing something because you love it and because it’s in you and you dreamt about it your whole life, is something that should never be ignored. One of the main things that taught me that is my cousin George Donaldson.
George was one of the first people I saw play music at a level I thought was only reserved for people who made it on to MTV. We were at a family cookout and as I would soon learn, everyone wanted George to play. He took out his guitar and started playing Irish songs and I was blown away. This guy was for real. Fast forward a few years later and my brothers and I are in Glasgow Scotland, and we were introduced to pub life. It was during the brit pop era and I thought that I was going to be hanging with Oasis and Pulp songs all night. Little did I know, that the Irish music and pub scene was thriving over there and in the center of it was my cousin Big George. Pubs like Ginty McGintys and Molly Malone’s were his base and he had played a mixture of Irish and Scottish folk (Caledonia, Seven Drunken Nights), more modern stuff like the Pougues (Sally MacLennan, A Pair of Brown Eyes), and you would even hear songs from Oasis and other big UK bands (Wonderwall, Half A World Away). This was before I, myself, had entered the bar scene to play music, and I can admit I was fascinated, star struck, and probably a little jealous all at the same time. He was doing something I wanted to do and doing it so well! I remember one night at Sullivan Station in Boston talking to a girl who said she had spent a lot of time in Glasgow. I thought it was a shot in the dark but I mentioned George and she of course knew him, and had been to see him play on several occasions. It’s not just anyone who is that memorable. I went to Glasgow quite a few times between the years of 1996-2001 and George playing was always one of the highlights of the trip.
Family obligations, and the loss of a job in the travel industry, has kept me here in the United States since 2001 but I always had assumed that nothing would change. George would always be at those bars, playing to his fans, and that when the time came for me to return I would simply head down to Gintys and pickup seeing him where I left off. That was until my father told me in passing that George had scaled back the amount of playing he was doing because he had his family, his wife Carolyn and daughter Sarah, and that he had taken a labor job to provide. This was probably around the time that I had quit my music career and it sort of reaffirmed everything I was thinking all along. There was no point in following your dreams. Dreams don’t come true, those that make it in music, or entertainment, had an “in”, it was fixed, blah blah blah. Then a funny thing happened a few years later. Someone in my immediate family told me George had joined this new group and that they were going to be on television, and touring the world. What? How in the world? George had gone to an audition for an Irish singing group called Celtic Thunder and was asked to join the group. Suddenly, there he is on PBS. He was in Sydney, London, New York and often Boston. He sang at the Pentagon. He opened the St Patrick’s Parade in New York. He was releasing solo albums in addition to the ones Celtic Thunder were releasing. Amazing!
The bottom line is he was doing it. He was living out his dream and it didn’t even start till he was 37 years old. I talked with him about this and he was so happy that he was doing what he always wanted. At a gig here in Boston, last winter, he played a packed room for fans and this is someone who I used to watch at cookouts and pubs in Glasgow. Then I went to see him at the Orpheum in Boston last summer. The Orpheum! A place I had seen Sonic Youth, Bruce Springsteen, Blur, and countless others. He even shouted out my brother and I from the stage! He had really done it and it was all because he never gave up what he loved.
I figured I would see George this year again as he routinely played Boston on tour and we would have a few pints and tell a few jokes, and celebrate his success. That was until my father called last night to tell me the devastating news that George, had a sudden heart attack and died. How could this be? He didn’t seem unhealthy, what could have happened? I am still in shock. People die every minute and it’s sometimes so random and unexpected, what are we to think? This is the exact moment where all those clichés and inspirational quotes you see on social media these days come into focus. Follow your dreams, don’t waste a day, tell everyone you love that you love them, if there is a will there is a way, etc etc. George Donaldson epitomized these quotes because he never did stop believing in his dream, and when opportunity came he seized it. There are no words I can offer my cousins, friends, and fans of his that would make the pain any less that what it is, but to know someone has touched the lives of others, is hopefully, in time, consoling. I wont even get into here what a great guy he was, in addition to his phenomenal talent, because you would have had to have met him to really know, but it cant go without saying that he was.
So thank you George for the inspiration to keep going and never give up. You showed the cynic in me, that clichés are not all false hope for the insecure, but words that were said because they had, and still do, mean something. I will always use George’s influence in my life, because he did it.
This isn’t a story about someone famous, that I don’t know. This is my family.
Rest in peace George.
Love your cousin Michael.
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