Terrence Howard's debut album "Shine Through It" was finaly released to the world yesterday. I can't help but smile when I think about the night of Sunday February 26th, 2006. I was with the amazing Taryn Manning (whom I was personaly assisting at the time) and Tara Jane at a clothing trade show in Las Vegas. They were promoting their clothing line Born Uniqorn and were sweet enough to invite me up there to help out at the booth for the weekend. At 19 years old I was thrilled and excited to be a part of something so cool and ineteresting. After a long weekened we were all exhausted and packing up the car to head back to Los Angeles when someone happened to mention that Terrence Howard was in town. The next weekend was the oscars and he was nominated for his performance in Hustle and Flow. Taryn, who has been good friends with him following their electrifying performance together in the movie, gave him a call to see where he was. He invited her over to his hotel for a quick hello before we headed out of town.
As a bakup singer for Taryn's band Boomkat I knew of her amazing talent as a songwriter, singer, guitar player, and performer. So when she had told me a few months earlier that Terrence was an excelent musician as well, I knew he must be pretty amazing. She said that she could see the two of us getting along well. So when I overheard that we would be stopping by to see him I felt an excitement I couldn't quite explain. I couldn't stop smiling as we drove from the convention center to the hotel to meet up with him. We pulled up and I saw him through the back window of the car. My heart dropped to my stomach and started racing. I don't get start struck, it wasn't that, it was just that I knew this was someone I had to meet for whatever reason. Much the way I felt when I first met Taryn, and ended up working for her and she ultimately became one of my dearest friends. It's that feeling of seeing someone you haven't seen for a while, even though you've never met before in this lifetime, but you know them somehow. That's how I felt with Terrence. So when he invited us up to his room to hang out for a bit I was overjoyed.
We walked into the most beautiful hotel room I had ever seen. We were literaly on top of the world. It was at the very top floor with a view of the entire city. My eyes felt as big as the room as I tried to take it all in. The first thing Terence did was pick up his guitar and start his signiture plucking on his nylon string acoustic. "This guy can play" I thought to myself. He put the guitar down and looked at all of us. The way he tells the story I said "Are you going to play that thing?" I don't remember saying that, but knowing what a show off I used to be I can imagine it was something like that.
I played "Halfway There", and we ended up there for hours playing songs back and forth, lost in our own little musical world. My friends, understandably, were a bit annoyed that we were supposed to pop in and say hi and we ended up there for considerably longer. But it was magic that was being made, and something greater than us had taken over.
This was the beginning of our journey together. Years have passed since that night, and now. Writing this in my hotel room finaly resting after our many travels, I smile and am thankful, to Taryn for believing in me and introducing me to Terrence and encouraging me to pick up the guitar that night, for dealing with my insecurities and dramas on the rollercoaster that is the music industry and life, as a friend and a source of strength and light and inspiration. To my parents for their unwavering trust in me and my choices, and a love that is the meaning and truth of love itself. My fathers generosity with his musical genius, and my mothers endless inspiration with her words. To my sister who wrote songs before I did and whom I worshiped and have wanted to impress my whole life. Who never misses a show and supports me with so much kindness and grace. And of course to Terrence for taking a chance on me, for showing up at 3 am with Jon Bon Jovi and saying "why don't you play him a song?", for marching me into Sony and demanding that they see in me what he see's in me, for giving me the opportunity to sing and write a song on his album, for inviting me to sing and play guitar in his band and insisting that I be a part of every part of the show, and for believing in me at times more than I even believe in myself.
The first single is "Sanctuary" which Terrence and I wrote together last summer on a beautiful night in June while he was living in Los Feliz and filming Irom Man. He called and asked me to come over so I could play him a new song that I had written called "Know My Name." The irony was that my song was partly out of frustration and anger at him about some of our music buisiness dealings together (which he knows, and we laugh about now.) He was preparing to record his first album and after I played my song, he played me a couple of lines from a song that he was stuck on. We ended up finishing it together and eventualy it was chosen by Columbia Records as the first single.
We have done a few full concerts on this tour so far. Some of the best players in the world comprise the band and the show is all live, no backing tracks or synthetic sounds, it's raw and it's real. Yesterday we performed on the Today Show and Leterman. I'll write about those later. I have to get ready for our performance at Bloomingdales in New York tonight. Thanks for reading, stay tuned for more to come!!!
-Ilsey