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About Me
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Southern
Railway - Stonewall - Zaharas
Three names - 32 years. The bands live on in me, and the
songs I am now writing.
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****All songs have been
registered with the U.S. Copyright Office****
I never claimed to be a good guitar player or singer, but I sure had fun
trying! J
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Country Tunes
From The CD - Crazy Over You
By: Mick Lail
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Click here to read about the bands I played in over the
years.
(Coming Soon)
What’s going on with Zaharas these days?
As far as I know, I am the member
of any of my bands who is still writing and recording. Every once in a while, an
idea comes to me and I putter around with it to see if I can make a new
song.
I have recorded enough songs so far to make one
country CD, three rock CDs, and one Christmas CD. I continue to write and
record on my own at times. Time is becoming short, and inspiration is harder
to come by than in my younger days.
Over the years, the music has changed a lot. My
recordings go all the way back to 1974. If nothing else, my kids will have
something to remember me by!
Here are a few interesting things that others
have to say about our first album: Livin’ Ain’t Easy.
Rare music store in Belgium
ZAHARAS: Livin’ Ain’t Easy (private US 74)*
bloody rare and great North Carolina thunderous hard/rock quartet… 10
awesome tracks with heavy Led Zep influences, manic vocals, cooking acid
guitar leads, and that feel you’ll find in Finchley Boys or Josefus
From a book about bands from the
70’s in Wolverhampton,
England.
ZAHARAS: Livin' Ain't Easy - Private Pressing From North
Carolina, a hard rock quartet with strong Led Zeppelin influence.
This hard rock album dates to the mid-70s but
sounds more modern, almost 80s.
On the first few songs, two of which are slower and more deliberate than
your typical hard rock/southern rock fare, the songwriting and guitar
playing are surprisingly subtle for this style of music.
Oklahoma,
USA.
ZAHARAS-Livin' Ain't Easy –Vegas (U.S., '74)* - Rare privately issued
hardrock blaster; thunderous beat, tortured vocalist, and the ever-present
smokin' axework.
ZAHARAS-Blackbird
– VEGAS (U.S., ’79) Totally unknown and obviously much more rare second album in the
same musical niche as their first. Issued in plain white cover.
Oregon,
USA
It's
definitely a specialist item.
*The album was record in 1978. I have no
idea why everyone has that it was
done in 1974. - Mick
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1 - Crazy Over You
2 - Hidden Emotions
3 - Honey
4 - It’s Over
5 - Lifetime Lover
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6 - Lucky One
7 - Sarah
8 - Secret Hideaway
9 - The Prayer
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Rock Tunes
From The LP/CD - Zaharas - Livin’ Ain’t Easy
The Vinyl LP is Extremely Rare
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1 - I Love You Babe
2 - Livin’ Ain’t Easy
3 - New York City
4 - One Last Night
5 - Stairway – Part 2
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6 - Feelin’ Ain’t Right
7 - The Round Table
8 - You’ll Be With Me
9 - You’re My Baby
10 - Grand Illusion
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Cecil Crotts
wrote “The Feelin’ Ain’t Right”.
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From The LP/CD - Zaharas– Blackbird
The Vinyl LP is Extremely Rare
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1 - Blackbird
2 - I’m The Sun
3 - Lay Down
4 - Let My People Go
5 - A Way To Get High
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6 - Love Me
7 - Reflections
8 - She Wants Me
9 - Starr
10 - Evil Woman
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From The CD - Zaharas - Shades of
Darkness
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1 - Master of The Night
2 - Evil Woman
3 - Jessica
4 - Talk of Time
5 - Looking For Love
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6 - Grand Illusion
7 - Bar Hopper
8 - Sacrifice
9 - You’ve Got a Friend
10 -
Death and Destruction
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Note: Evil Woman was originally on the CD Blackbird.
Grand Illusion was originally on the CD Livin’ Ain’t Easy.
When I started the “Shades of Darkness” Project, those two songs just
seemed to fit in with the mood of the new set. So, I just added them to this
CD too. J
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From The CD - Mick’s Christmas CD
Catchy title don’t you think? J
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1 - Away In a Manger
2 - Come All Ye Faithful
3 - Deck The Halls
4 - Frosty The Snowman
5 - God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
6 - I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa
Claus
7 - Jingle Bells
8 - Oh Little Town Of
Bethlehem
9 - Silent Night
10 - Silver Bells
11 - The Christmas Song
12 - What Child Is This
13 - White Christmas - Traditional
14 - White Christmas – Modern
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The
first two Vinyl LPs are long gone. There are only a few of them in
existence and they are becoming more rare as time goes by.
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I always wanted to make a Christmas CD, but I kept putting it
off. I finally got around to singing these songs with some back-up karaoke
music. Believe me, it is nothing great. In fact, a few of the songs are not
too good at all, but I had a lot of fun doing it.
Just don’t expect Bing Crosby! J
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New Songs – Not Yet On CD
1 - Waitin’ For The Night Time
2 - Lillie
3 - That Somebody Is Me – Country
4 - Take Me As I Am – Country
5 – Just Playing
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I am hoping to have these two projects finished in the next few
years. Time is getting short and inspiration is getting harder to find than
in my younger days.
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Fans Everywhere – Thank You!
How
our first album, Livin' Ain't Easy, found its way all over the United States and several
countries in Europe is a bit of a mystery. But it just proves that music
has a life of its own sometimes. It is nice that some people appreciate our
old LPs and are taking care of them. To my delight, Blackbird is now
becoming quite popular as well.
A little bit of the old band will
always live on in those pieces of vinyl. Thanks to all of our fans from the
past and the present. Thanks also to those of you who will become fans if
you ever have a chance to hear how a bunch of good old boys from the
Catawba Valley played their hearts out in North Carolina Honky-Tonks.
It gives me unending joy to know that the music that I wrote is still wanted
all over the world. Along with the old vinyl records, I have
completed two self-made CDs that are pretty decent, but very different from
the old music. These CDs are becoming popular in their own right.
The "Livin' Ain't Easy" LP was a labor of love,
but the "Blackbird" LP was intense, complicated, and took much longer
to write and complete. The vast majority of any band's fan base does not
really know what inspired the songs the band does. So, I will tell you a
little about some of the songs.
The song Livin' Ain't Easy was written while I was sitting on the floorboard
of a car as we were trying to find places to play when we first started out.
One Last Night Together was written for my wife. Stairway To Heaven - Part
Two is self explanatory. I Love you Babe was written for an old girlfriend.
And my favorite song on the Livin' Ain't Easy LP, Grand Illusion, is about a
young man who overdoses on drugs and sees his dead girlfriend. Nobody in my
band was allowed to do drugs. The only one allowed to drink any alcohol
while we were playing was the drummer because he worked up such a sweat.
On the Blackbird LP, the song Blackbird is about how people in ancient times
believed that the blackbird signified evil. Reflections was yet another song
for an old girlfriend. Let My People Go was something for the disco haters of
the time. Evil woman was about a witch. Looking For a Way To Get High was
another song about young people overdosing on drugs. Starr was about a
really hot young lady who I just couldn't say no too. And my favorite song
on the Blackbird LP, She Wants Me, is about a man who was done dirty by his
woman and now he has found another so the ex-girlfriend is out of luck.
I am amazed that I even have any of these LPs left at all.
The Mick's Christmas CD done for the fun of it. I used karaoke music
and sang a lot of old standards. One thing I am not is a Christmas song type
singer. It was a lot of fun though.
The Crazy Over You CD was done simply because I wanted to do
something country. The songs on it range from happy go lucky to brooding and
tragic. I like it. It's pretty good country. It is not the best sounding of
my projects, but it is pretty decent.
My favorite project so far has been the Shades of Darkness CD. I
think I was born to play that type of music. I had more fun doing that set
of songs than any other. There are a few songs on the set that seem a bit
out of place, but I just wanted to do something really different. Seven of
the ten songs in that set deal with the occult, death, and just evil in
general. I love it.
I love that people like my newer CDs, and I really appreciate the interest in the old vinyl records. Hopefully, when I am long gone from this world, my songs will still be
playing somewhere.
I hope that you enjoy
Blackbird, Livin’ Ain’t Easy, and all the rest of my songs, as much as I enjoyed making them.
Mick Lail
ZAHARAS
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