JANUARY 2026
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| VOL 21 ISSUE 1 | JANUARY 2026 |
We took a family trip to Sedona over the New Year's Eve holiday and did quite a bit of hiking. The picture above is one of the highlights when I hiked about 5 miles to the Subway Cave with Sav Greenawalt and my grandson Gavin. It's classified as a moderate hike, but most of it was relatively easy and fun. At the very end, though, there was one pretty scary ledge you had to cross (survive). Sav and Gav also climbed to the top of a vortex rock at the beginning of the Boynton Trail, but I took one look at it and said “nope!” The whole group took a short hike from our AirBnB to the nearby Amitabha Stupa, a sacred landmark with a bronze statue of the Buddha of Limitless Light. The third picture is from the Sedona Airport Scenic Overlook. I went here during the morning twilight and watched hot air balloons in the mist as the sun rose behind me.
I love visiting Sedona and we took some time to explore the shops at Tlaquepaque and had dinner at the Oak Creek Brewery and Grill where I ordered a flight to sample their entire beer line up!
I sat down at my piano in 2019 with the idea of writing a blues-infused rock song. Musically, it was inspired by the synth intro to the Out in the Cold from the Turbo by Judas Priest. Lyrically, it tells the story of two lovers who both believe they deserve someone better.
Once the song was finished, I set up my iPhone and recorded a simple piano-and-vocal video of myself performing it. My friend Anton Scholl—who is also a singer/songwriter—sent me a heartwarming message saying how much he liked the song and that he’d be interested in recording his own version, with me producing it. I said absolutely… and then proceeded to sit on the idea for five years.
Last December, I uploaded that live piano version into Suno and asked it to create a “cover” version using prompts like: Haunting Piano, Cinematic, Blues Rock, Dynamic Production, Rock Guitars, Driving Symphonic Chorus. I loved what it produced and sent it to Anton to see if he was still interested in adding his vocals. He was!
The original plan was simply to place his vocal track over the Suno-generated instrumentation. But I wanted a slightly different ending and felt the song needed a few additional parts of my own. As I began modifying things, the blend wasn’t quite working the way I envisioned. Eventually I decided to rebuild the track from the ground up and ended up playing all the instruments and background vocals myself—Gibson Gold Top and Fender Silver Burst Strat guitars, bass, drums, harmonica, piano, and Fender Rhodes.
And now a song that was nearly lost in time is finally out in the world and available on all the streaming platforms for your enjoyment.
Click here to listen on YouTube.
I took my mom along to Tucson to do an architectural photoshoot of the lighting at the new Rocking K Clubhouse that I recently completed. Once completed, we stopped and had lunch and then caught one of the last trolleys to the top of Sabino Canyon. What a beautiful place. That's the densest collection of Saguaro cacti I believe I have ever seen. There were several bridges over the streams as we traveled up the winding road and many opportunities to go hiking on the seven stops along the way.
Friday, June 5th - Phoenix Fan Fusion Bodypainting Extravaganza - Theme Evil A livE.
E-ya later,
Mark Greenawalt
Mark@MarkGreenawalt.com
My gift to you is my music. Please kindly accept by going to these fine streaming services to download and stream! I hope you like some and consider them for your favorite playlists!
copyright Mark Greenawalt, Future-Class X Publishing - Phoenix, AZ 85044
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