Once all goes well then you can buy them all at my music website:

http://jamessheltontheartist.bandcamp.com

Oh,yes I am truly an artist at heart.

More of an artist than my own parents.

My dad was a left handed guitarist as a teen like myself.

My mom played her mom’s organ as a teen.

She saw it there and wanted to see how it sounded.

My drive for music was much different.

As a toddler I pulled open the bottom oven drawer

and pulled out some pot’s and pan’s

and my mom was taking a fit.

I grabbed some spoon’s and beat the pots.

Still my drive wasn’t to be a drummer,it really wasn’t.

A year or so later I got an little Flintstobes Xylophone

and I would play it regularly.

My first piano at age 4 was miniature sized

with keys the size of Hotwheel’s Car Wheels.

When I saw it I told my mom that I wanted it

so my mom got it and we bought it.

The miniature piano was the size of a soda bottle left to right.

Still,my little fingers then did manage to play it,

yet playing chords was still out of the question

so I grew frustrated with it after 3 years of trying.

The next year I got my first guitar,a Prelude and it was brown too.

My dad’s mom used to come over to see me,my mom and my dad

and I’d play her songs from

Hank Williams Sr.,Garth Brooks and Travis Tritt.

She still brings it up every once in a while

to my parents,that is not a bad thing though.

At age 7 I got my first keyboard,a Cherry Red keyboard

that had built into it the ability to play nursery rhymes:

London Bridges and Mary Had A Little Lamb.

I did play it for a year then one day with my dad

he took me to the music store and I saw this Blessings Harmonica

which is a Chinese Harmonica in the Key of C

and I told him that I wanted it so he bought it for me

and I still have it with me too.

It’s a nice Harmonica and they are available online today,yet not that cheap.

Maybe there is discounted ones,yet I am not that sure of it.

The year before I wanted to sing and I did not own a microphone

and at the time we had it tough so we lived off of Food Stamps,

yet I still go an allowance

and I got myself the Pink and Blue Planet Rock Microphone

that would sound till the cord connected to it got tore apart,

I was upset about it all and this was back in 1994.

As you can tell my tastes changed every once in a while.

In 1997 my cousin gave me a 6 string bass and a 6 string electric guitar

and my dad mistakenly told that they were two electric

so whenever my other cousin came over

me and him would play them and at times switch.

It was a great time,yet I just never could figure out

how the artists managed to play so good till later.

I didn’t really get into songwriting fully till the summer of 2000,

yet I did start trying to write a song in February of 1997.

After I got into songwriting

I put the Eddie and the Cruisers VHS Tape into the VCR Player

and I watched and rewatched

and rewatched and rewatched and rewatched

the scene where Eddie Wilson is songwriting.

The movie is about a artist who the media thinks is dead

because his car went over a bridge,yet his body was never found.

He was not dead though,yet most of his bandmembers were,

yet this is just a movie,nothing that real about it.

After watching and rewatching that scene off of

Eddie and the Cruisers I went back to songwriting with full force.

The following days was me trying to write songs again

and I managed to get two verses wrote,yet no full song.

I was ticked off,no song,just two damn verses and nothing more.

This drove me to try harder and so my songs then seemed crazy to me

as they were video game oriented,yet the drawings and the lyrics I threw away.

My first song that I managed to get a bass line for,

yet at the hand no clue that was what it was called

was wrote mentally in my mind when I was 14 in 2001 or 2002.

I have no clue which one,yet the song I managed to complete

after a decade in 2012 to me,yet it could’ve been over a decade

if I started to write mentally in my mind in 2001.

I was very into Heavy Metal at the time.

Still it was killing me,I had nightmares,sleepwalked,

at times I couldn’t sleep and I was bulimic and bit anorexic

as I weighed 155 lbs. if not less.

My dad was mad at me and told me to never do it again

so I didn’t and I went back up in weight,

yet I made a mistake o regain the weight I binge ate

and over time I got to 255 lbs.

so walking became a struggle,yet now at 182 lbs.

walking is effortless again,yet I want to get down 175 lbs.

and I will because when there’s a will,there’s a way

and I have both.

About the songwriting again.

In November 2003 in my goal to turn my life around

I threw away my Ozzy Osbourne albums

and the wrestling soundtrack with

Metallica,Megadeth Slayer and more

because it messed up my thinking.

After I did that I recommitted my life to Christ,

yet this was a turn for the worst

as if it wasn’t bad enough giving up Country Music

and all other music for a whole year,my musical roots

in a extreme goal to be perfect which ended in November 2004

because the Youth Scene was killing me

mentally and emotionally and while sitting there in Bible Quiz in WV

a part of me felt like something was very wrong.

It took me a very long time to realize it,

yet I did eventually.

So much for just letting metal music go,

I went to extremes and tried to be liked a hardcore Christian.

I would do praise and worship everyday for a whole year

and my parents wanted to put me into a insane assylum

because I would be up late

and just watch Christian programming and play Christian music

all the time,even during the weekends.

I at times didn’t want to,yet being a Christian,

I thought that I had to or God would damn me

which is not true and I realize it now,

yet then I thought that he would or I would lose my salvation.

I had serious issues

and then I realized in October 2004

that my then love was no longer doing the Youth thing

and I wanted to take time off

because she was no longer there

and part of me felt like it was ripped from my life

and never to return again

and after I saw her with another man

I tried to write a song,yet only could manage to write lines

and I wept for hours.

Life was no longer fun anymore,it was a living hell

and even seeing the day or the night was torture.

I eventually got over her,yet I would not be interested in another girl

for quite a while,yet then it wasn’t the same

and I hated to even try to get with these women.

They were nothing like me like she was.

So I would go to the bathroom where no one went

and just stare out into space and pretend that I was somewhere,

anywhere else but there and this was high school

where like I posted before,

I had to wear polo shirts and khaki pants or I got detention

and in truth I had detention most times every day,every week

and I hated it.

I would break the rules.

I would be late for spike and I had to write a Bible verse down 10 times

which I also hated to.

I felt like I was a prisoner.

Me and my then friends would joke about wearing prison outfits to school

as a protest against the damn dress code which I thought was b.s.

In drama class they wanted me to wear a dress

and I refused to even show for drama class

which was a weekly thing every day,every week Monday-Friday

and I got detention the next day.

A part of me wanted to go West on a train for some reason

that is still beyond me even now.

At times I wanted to leave my town altogether.

The thrill was gone and eventually I will leave my town

and rarely come back except for holidays or special occasions.

With mom’s mom dead I have no reason to see her family.

she was probably the most important to me

out of her whole family,yet then again I might see them again.

It will seem strange though

because I knew her before I did most of them,honestly.