In 1967 I was a teenager, and being a hippy or a flower child was the happening thing. That meant I needed to learn guitar.
It was the tail end of the sixties, spilling into the early seventies, when everything hinged on love and peace and being groovy. I started writing songs the minute I got my first (plastic) guitar.
My parents appreciated how serious I was, and perhaps saw a hint of talent, so after persistent begging, they bought me a real guitar.
Sadly, my life was soon filled with trauma—five sudden deaths: a two-year-old, an 8-year-old, a 16-year-old, a seventeen-year-old, and a young mother. The death of my mother was so horrific that it was unspeakable—our family could not speak; there was a dead silence. We all carried the same unspoken lament. I used my guitar to voice the pain I felt and practiced my guitar hiding behind the bushes, singing my heart out, growing hard calluses on my fingertips. I scribbled down song after song, all of them drawn from grief until my notebook ran out of pages I had over 100 songs. Thankfully, only a few were ever heard by anyone but me.
Our neighborhood girl band was called Half Past. All of us wrote and sang. I was 12 years old when we started writing and singing together, and I was still writing and singing at age 50. Now the band lives in our hearts as Past Half, because we are over half a century old, married and off in different directions. I became a family with 5 kids but still kept the dream of creating music in my heart.
I was 54 years old when a miracle happened. All because of a mistake.
Chris Hale was someone I’d heard of for years, but never seen or met. He was a graduate from Woodstock school in the Himalayas of India, where my kids went to school. He was well-known in the Christian music world as an accomplished preforming artist. Aradhna, his band, perform internationally.
Chris grew up in Nepal and had a passion for Nepali and Hindi worship music. His dream was to worship God in the local languages, with Indian instruments, and in cultural context. He played sitar and many other instruments, singing fluently in the local languages. He was young and had long blonde hair. He was living my life’s dream—and he fit the bill for being exceedingly “groovy.” I’d never had the opportunity to meet him.
Here’s where the miracle fits in.
We’d just put a phone line into our house and I received a phone call.
It was Chris Hale, wanting to talk to me!
He said, “Hi. This is Chris Hale,” as though that were wholly unremarkable, and then, to my astonishment said, “I was wondering if you could arrange a concert for me in Dehradun?”
I felt like I’d been struck by lightning and said, “Yeah, sure.”
“Oh, that’s great,” he said. “Thanks.”
He probably said more, but that’s all I remember. After hanging up I wondered what made me say I’d do it. I hadn’t the vaguest idea of how to accomplish such a thing. I only knew how awe-struck I was for being asked. That night I went to bed wondering about the logistics of how I’d manage this feat.
The next day, every move I made carried the weight of a crushing anxiety and slow dawning of how much trouble I was in.
In the afternoon, the phone rang.
It was Chris Hale.
“Hey, I just wanted to let you know that you don’t have to arrange the concert, I’ve asked someone else to do it.”
I don’t remember if he said anything else. I only remember the initial disappointment, followed by a surge of relief. I’d received the joy of Chris Hale asking me for help, and that was quite enough. Anything further was beyond understanding. I spent the rest of the day happy.
And then the phone rang.
It was Chris Hale.
“Hi Frieda, the person I asked to arrange my concert is not going to do it.”
I gulped, wondering if I’d be able to say no to him.
“So, I was wondering if you wanted to do anything with me?”
What? Did I hear right? As in perform…or what? This is not possible. I don’t even know Chris Hale. I’ve never even seen or met him. This is surely not happening.
All those thoughts raced through my head in a heartbeat, and in that same hysterical heartbeat another absurd thing happened.
I said, “Chris, I’d like to make an album with you. “
As soon as those words came out of my mouth I thought I must be out of my mind.
“Sure. But we’ll have to go to Lucknow where my studio is.”
“Okay, I can do that,” I heard myself vocalizing the ridiculous.
“Great, lets plan a date and I’ll get back to you with the details. I’ll call my classical musicians in to accompany the songs.”
That seemed absurd. “But they don’t know the songs.”
“That makes no difference, they’ll fit into anywhere you want them to come in.”
After that the conversation became very interesting. A date was planned and I was suddenly making an album. I let a good friend in on the secret, and being older than me, he assured me I was way out of my league.
“Frieda. Fifty-four-year-olds don’t make albums. You’re over the hill.”
Given his thoughts, I was wary, but in the meantime, I arranged for others to accompany me and do vocals with me. We ran a children’s hostel and school in India, and a young man was with us completing his 6-month volunteer work. He was leaving in two weeks.
“Michael, are you musical at all?”
“I can play the violin a bit, and I sing okay. But I don’t have a violin.”
I presented him with a child-sized violin that’d been gathering dust in my closet. He tried it, and now I had a singer and a violinist. At least I hoped so.
This was a dream, like going to the stars and coming back again. All because Chris made the mistake of asking the wrong person to arrange his concert. But he was humble enough, and wild enough, to take a risk on me, someone he didn’t know.
He also called Peter Hicks, his friend and band member to join him for added accompaniment on my songs. During the recording, a line from one of my songs, Now is the time, became something we said to each other.
Recording was exciting! I’d never been in a studio before and had no idea of how it would all come together. Chris and Peter taught me which instruments to record first, when to add other instruments, and when to bring in the lead vocal, the harmonies, and more. On the song Rend Your Heart, Peter played the Sarod, a classical Indian instrument. One needs long hard fingernails to play Sarod, and his were short. So, on his way to the studio he stopped at a beauty parlour and bought some fake nails. We all laughed at him trying to wear them.
During the recording, he was trying to master a difficult passage of notes and made multiple try’s until he finally he pulled it off. He was elated! In the same song, Chris took off singing, his voice climbing the sa-ra-ga-ma scale, higher and higher like a true classical guru. I was awed. It was remarkable how his voice, full of lament, rose like a cry to God.
And then there was Michael, our volunteer. Young and visionary, he planned to become a doctor with the hope of working in Afghanistan. He managed magnificently on my tiny violin! He’d humbly told me he was an “okay” violinist, but he was brilliant, and his soothing, beautiful voice provided wonderful harmony. His talents added creativity to the music, and his improvisational playing on the song, Poor Little Child made everyone’s jaw drop during the recording. He also did amazing harmonies on the mandolin. That song was particularly fun with Indian classical instruments, as well as electric guitar and included the voices of three children.
Looking back, I realize that was really a dream come true for me. An amazing gift. I’m so glad I didn’t let my age become a road-block. And I’m thankful Chris Hale found a reason and risked believing in me, and thankful to Peter Hicks, whose help was invaluable. So many people got involved, making my dream come true. I hope it fulfilled a dream for them too.
Had I pursued music professionally, I would have missed a lot of what God had in store for me. Music is a big pursuit, and such a beautiful blessing.
Michael, with all his talent, became a doctor and went to Afghanistan. While there, he stayed with the wife of a friend, Dan Terry. At the time, Dan was away, serving as guide for a Humanitarian Aid Group. That trip was sabotaged by the Taliban who mercilessly killed all ten of them: doctors, nurses, photographers, and Dan. Only two Afghans were spared who drove all the bodies home. Michael chose an extremely difficult road, but a meaningful life.
When I was young, my dreams and desires and God’s purpose took a bit of sorting out. I created the album Touch the Feet in 2007. The gift of time, and the ability to reflect helped me connect the dots.
Now is the time!
I’m thankful to God, and many people.
And, I can say, “Hey! Me and Chris Hale made an album!”
Touch the Feet:
- Holy Spirit
- Just So Close
- All I Want
- Veil My Eyes
- Rend Your Heart
- Jesus Said
- Touch the Feet
- Enter In
- I Release You
- Thanks, Dad
- Satisfied
- Keep Me as Your Child
Tracks 3,4,5,7,9 produced by Christopher Hale and Peter Hicks
Tracks 1,2,6,8,10,11,12 produced by Frieda McRae and Michael Sethi
Lead Vocal: Frieda McRae
Accompanying lead vocals: Sonu Kumar, Elizabeth Lal, Sheva McRae, Josie Kampa
Harmonies; Michael Sethi, Frieda McRae, Christopher Hale
Children’s voices: Nishal, Noel, Niveh Eisenberg
Below are the three songs I’ve mentioned.
Click or play on the songs page: Singing the Unsung Story
Rend Your Heart (Hear Peter mastering the Sarod and Chris climbing up Jacob’s ladder to God.)
Now is the Time, or I Release Your Spirit (Our theme for the team“now is the time!”)
Poor Little Child (Amazing talents came forth, it was so much fun to create.)