books, movies & music
The Day Before My Last.
Lives saved, on both ends of the leash.
~Photographs and Story by Anna Cooke
S
hyness is a personality trait often mistaken for aloofness or conceit. As a singer/songwriter, Scotty Lee easily engages his audience with his Florida stories and interesting sense of humor. He’s a story teller, and enjoys weaving a good one. But one-on-one, there is a palpable sadness to his eyes; a guarded measure to his answers. Anyone whose life has been touched by tragedy will recognize the look. Scotty is a registered nurse, trained in kidney dialysis and home health care. And, while he enjoyed his work helping people, music has always been his passion. By the time he was 24 years old, he was playing somewhere on Clearwater Beach every day of the week. But then he hit a long streak of bad luck, between work and personal relationships gone wrong. On top of that, while trying to defend his home after a couple of guys broke in, he was beat up pretty bad. Unable to work as a result of the orbital fracture in three places around his eye, he lost his steady gig at the Holiday Inn on Clearwater Beach. Soon afterwards, the Karaoke craze kicked in. A year went by, and Scotty couldn’t get himself booked anywhere. The robbery turned his life upside down. With a young daughter to support, Scotty decided to enroll in school and become a nurse. For 15 years, nursing provided a good, steady living, but writing and performing music were always on his mind. “I’ve been writing stuff since I was a kid. My mom had a lot of books, many of which were fairy tales and books of poems. They were written in the old English style, and I use to enjoy reading the prose. Those stories, and that style of writing had a big influence on my songwriting,” said Scotty, who has been back doing music full time for the past five years.
Singer/songwriter Scotty Lee with three dogs from Dunedin Dog Rescue.
54 THE NEW BARKER www.TheNewBarker.com