PEACE AND LOVE FROM LAYLA
Hum the tune to Eric Clapton’s ‘Layla’ and you’ll no doubt have a
room singing along with you… well, here’s a musical Layla, her name
inspired by that very song, who not only dreams of singing with
Clapton, but has written songs and poetry dedicated to him. Her
other hero, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, may for some be an
unlikely one, but as the mood of the world shifts she may just have
her finger on the soul pulse.
Layla is an unusual lass with unique friends. If her fans are
anything to go by, her group, the Orlanda Rock Band, has a
rock-blues style all its own. “ All I know “, she explains, “is
what other people say about us: … We sound like the Doors, Enya,
and Jefferson Airplane… mystical, psychedelic, bluesy rock. The
real moment in rock came for me when I heard Big Brother and the
Holding Company in San Francisco doing “Ball and Chain”. It was
totally spellbinding ... took me into another realm. Right then and
there, I said, “I want to be her [Janis Joplin]!”
A trained pianist and honours graduate from Rollins College, Layla
began her musical life as a 4-year-old, in a gospel trio, singing
with her uncle and cousin. Her entrée silhouette into the echelons
of the world’s ‘who’s who’, includes brushing shoulders with the
likes of Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, and the Grateful Dead. Her
performances have seen audiences with Art Grindle, Sen. Paula
Hawkins, Congressman Bill McCollum, Gov. Bob Martinez, Texas Gov.
John Connolly, Rear Admiral Lee Tillotson, and Michael Eisner.
“The real moment in rock came for me when I heard 'Big Brother and
the Holding Company' in San Francisco, performing “Ball and Chain”.
It was totally spellbinding ... took me into another realm. Right
then and there, I said I want to be her [Janis Joplin]! ” Layla's
view of the world changed forever, as did her spirit, when as a
child she was not allowed to drink water from a "segregated"
fountain.
When she was a little girl, Layla would go grocery shopping with
her parents. One day she walked over to a water fountain for a
drink and a shop clerk ran up to her saying, "Don't drink from that
water fountain, little girl, it's for 'colored people.' " From that
day on, she says, “I ALWAYS drank from the 'colored people's'
fountain.”
As she grew older and got an allowance, Layla would save her money
and the night before garbage pick-up, she would sneak out and
carefully place the money on the garbage can because she just knew
that those workers, who were Black, needed the money more than she
did. As a teenager she used to ride the bus to downtown Miami for
an afternoon movie; back then, as she explains it, …“ Afro-
Americans had to ride at the back of the buses, so I ALWAYS rode in
the back with them. One afternoon the bus driver said, "Young lady,
sit with the white people, or I will stop this bus, and you will
have to get off! I walked over to the back exit. He stopped and I
got off.”
Years later in New York City, she met a person involved in the Ban
the Bomb/Peace movement. They marched down 5th Avenue by the
hundreds singing … ‘We shall ban the bomb...we shall live in
Peace.’ Once, while still a student a friend turned up at her door
in Gainesville, FL, and said "Pack a bag; we're going to Selma, so
Black folks can vote!" She did just that. They sat in the back of
the church and listened to the plan of peaceful resistance — ‘walk
don't run!’, from the church to the steps of the Court House in
peaceful defiance of the abuse handed out to Black people trying to
vote – was the instruction. She describes how frightened it all
made her…
“We were told we might be shot at, but I did it anyway. The only
time I felt safe was when we gathered near where all the press
was... us, the protesters, on one side of a barricade; on the other
side: tons of reporters with cameras... then this legion of every
kind of cop, policemen, rifles...I figured they wouldn't shoot us
with the Press there. We, the protesters, sang "We shall
Overcome"...we sang it and sang it..”
Again, years later, in Winter Park, Florida, she went to a concert
and heard about Leonard Peltier [
www.leonardpeltier.net]. She wrote
him at Leavenworth Prison and one Thanksgiving morning she received
a call from him from there, and asked if she would think about
helping him with her music. As she tells it.. “I have done several
concerts for Leonard in my area--one with AIM. Last summer I played
at the Oglala Commemoration in South Dakota for Leonard. Two of my
albums are dedicated to him; both my websites shine light on
Leonard's cause. You can hear the song I wrote for him at
www.myspace.com/orlandorockband. It's called "To the FBI: Love from
Leonard Peltier."
And as for His Serene Highness, she says simply, “ Somewhere along
the way I fell in love with Tibet and the Dalai Lama. I have given
3 concerts for the Dalai Lama and Tibet in Orlando. You can hear
"Song for Tibet" on the MySpace. We can all be pure of heart; we
can all have Noble Intentions. This is God's Way. It is easy, and
it is FUN !”
With love and peace from Layla…