(67) THE DECISION TO LEAVE NEW YORK...

The decision to leave New York wasn't an easy one for me. New York always seemed to be the center of creative enterprise to me and I loved the energy there. But bit by bit there was an exodus from New York to Los Angeles by a number of my peers. Television was moving from New York to Los Angeles - Hollywood - too.

So many of us traveled to perform that "home" became a bit difficult to define. Was home a place, a state of mind, a woman?

Home had always been to me Murphy, North Carolina - the Smokies. The family stead. But my older brothers had left home years before I did as the youngest, my mother had died, my father was remarried and living in Winston-Salem, and visits to my hometown and relatives had become rare due to my touring.

I'd traveled with my father for work, several states, building before I'd been discovered as the Next James Dean. I'd toured all over the United States. I'd been moving for years, one place to the next.

The life of planes, trains, and automobiles, sharing hotel rooms and sleeping sitting up got to me.

Maybe what got to me most was that I had no place to really call home at the end of each day.

I'd never relied on speed or any drugs to make it through. As I entered my late twenties the years of touring wore on me. I wanted a personal life. Some peace.

I wanted and needed a place to settle.

Everything I'd experienced since the age of 20 had changed me. There was no question about it.

Where did I belong?

So when one of the biggest song publishing houses in the country, American Music, courted me to be a staff song writer, which would end my years of touring, I thought it was the answer for me. A way to stay in the music business and use my talents and skills about then time I had a clue that most teen idols, even ones who were more successful than me, grew up and found either a new musical direction or something else to do.