Does grief get better and bring perspective over time? Kevin Campbell is a popular singer/songwriter whose latest album release, called The Stages, captures the whirlwind of feelings Kevin experienced after losing Melissa, his girlfriend of 22 years, during the spring of 2021. With its mix of styles ranging from blues, soul, jazz, funk, folk, country, and R&B, the songs in The Stages chronicle Kevin’s journey through the stages of grief and express the deep love Kevin shared with his girlfriend Melissa. There is an extra-special treat in this Grief and Rebirth Podcast interview, because not only does Keven share the amazing coincidences that occurred after Melissa transitioned, how his session with a medium 4 months after Melissa died helped him, the ways he helped himself to heal, and more, Kevin plays one of his songs from The Stages and shares its special meaning with us during the interview!
IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL HEAR ABOUT THINGS LIKE:
- How Kevin taught himself to play guitar at 26 years old.
- How Melissa passed, and her premonition that she might die young.
- The surprise letter Melissa left Kevin that has helped him live his life and try to find joy.
- How a session with a medium helped Kevin on his healing journey.
- How grief made Kevin the best version of himself.
SOME QUESTIONS IRENE ASKS KEVIN:
- What was your relationship with Melissa like, and how did she pass?
- What were the amazing coincidences that occurred in your life after Melissa transitioned?
- In what ways did grief show you how much people truly love you?
- How did grief make you grow up in unexpected ways?
- What would you like to play for us?
Check out Kevin’s latest album called The Stages which chronicles his journey through the stages of grief: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5OBwFIxpHHkl55UfNB77gP?si=3IjfKVC7Q2CbDu5pApKlzg
Follow Kevin Campbell for his latest music:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kevcam_music/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kevcammusic/
- Website: kevincampbellmusic.com
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Kevin Campbell: Does Grief Get Better and Bring Perspective Over Time?
Kevin’s Musical Journey
Does grief get better and bring perspective over time? You’re going to be both deeply touched and entertained when you read this very special interview with singer-songwriter Kevin Campbell. You’re going to be so touched when you hear of the amazing coincidences Kevin experienced when he lost his beloved, precious girlfriend, Melissa.
You’re going to be so deeply touched when you know how Kevin’s new album called The Stages captures the whirlwind of feelings Kevin experienced during his grief journey after his girlfriend, Melissa, transitioned. You’re going to be so highly entertained because Kevin picked up his guitar and played one of the songs from his album, The Stages, during our interview. It was wonderful. Wait until you read the lyrics.
I could not be more delighted to have the pleasure of interviewing popular singer-songwriter Kevin Campbell, whose songs are about life, love, and loss. Kevin’s latest album release, called The Stages, captures the whirlwind of feelings Kevin experienced after losing Melissa, his girlfriend of 22 years, during the spring of 2021.
The Stages is Kevin’s sixth album. With its mix of styles ranging from blues, soul, jazz, funk, folk, country, and R&B, the songs chronicle Kevin’s journey through the well-known seven stages of grief while expressing the deep love Kevin shared with his girlfriend, Melissa. Kevin’s love of the guitar and music started in the sixth-grade music class, but unfortunately, that love ended shortly thereafter when an incident with a classmate got him banished to the last chair for the rest of the year.
After abandoning music altogether, Kevin navigated the oft-taken route of an athlete turned professional mascot turned actor turned filmmaker before a chance encounter with an inexpensive guitar in Montgomery Ward reawakened his love of music. After a 23-year run in Los Angeles, Kevin calls Raleigh, North Carolina home.
We are all going to enjoy an extra special treat of the show because not only am I going to ask Kevin how he taught himself to play guitar at 26 years old, what the amazing coincidences that occurred after Melissa transitioned were, how his session with a medium four months after Melissa died helped him, the ways he helped himself to heal, and more, but Kevin is going to explain the meaning of a few of his wonderful songs and play parts of one of them for us. Kevin, a warm, heartfelt welcome to the show.
Thanks so much for having me.
It’s my pleasure. This is going to be fun. I’m really looking forward to it. I listened to your album. It’s wonderful. I am so happy to share you and your music with our audience. Let’s begin with this question because I want everyone to get to know you from the beginning. Could you tell us about your love of the guitar and music, how it started in your sixth-grade music class, what that childhood incident involving another classmate was, and what it means to be banished to the last chair?
Yeah. In sixth grade, I was in a guitar class as one of the electives. I took to it really fast. I got good quickly. They arrange you in chairs, like first chair, second chair, third chair, and so on. You’re able to challenge the chair in front of you to try to move up. If you play it cleaner or better, then you move up. I was in first chair pretty much the whole school year without anybody beating me in any challenges. One day, I remember getting into an argument. Her name was Stacy Baker. I remember her.
You’ll never forget her.
We got into an argument and I said something that wasn’t that great. I don’t need to repeat it here.
You were in sixth grade?
I was in sixth grade. I ended up getting sent to the principal’s office and then getting in-school suspension for three days. When I returned back to the class, the teacher put me into the last chair and he wouldn’t let me challenge the rest of the year. I was in the last chair with no goals of beating people or being better. At the end of the year, they passed out these electives. It was this little sheet of paper like, “What do you want to take next year?” Guitar was there. I ripped it up.
Your teacher overreacted.
I feel that way.
In this day and age, people would say, “Did you learn your lesson? Are you going to be a good boy now?”
Exactly. I went from 6th grade until I was 26 not playing guitar.
You taught yourself. Tell me how you taught yourself and what your songwriting process was like.
I don’t recommend that because it takes forever.
Talk about being talented, though, because I grew up playing the violin. I was very good at it. Like you, I had a real proclivity for it, but I had to take lessons.
I kept trying to learn songs. I got a bunch of song books and I would try to learn songs that I liked. Before I started playing guitar, I used to do spoken word poetry shows around LA. I started turning all of my poems into songs. It was not the actual poems I had already written. I didn’t write any more poems. I wrote songs after that. Eventually, I stopped trying to learn people’s songs and started trying to write my songs. That’s how it evolved.
Meeting Melissa
This is what you’re doing. You’ve done six albums, which is so wonderful. Could you tell us about Melissa, how you met her, and your relationship with her?
Yeah. Melissa was great. We met in an acting class in 1999 in LA. I remember I was sitting there and she was up in the front of the class with three other students. She was tall. She was 5’11 1/2”. She had jeans and a tube top on and she was leaning back on the stage. She was super comfortable. The teacher was going around asking each person to tell something about themselves and something special that they could do. When it got to her, she was like, “My name’s Melissa Colby. I grew up in Utah. I’m nineteen,” and then she was like, “I can eat a whole rack of ribs with one napkin.” I was like, “Who says that? How’s that anybody’s special talent? Why is she so comfortable?” I was struck by her. I remember that. I’ll never forget what she was wearing the whole deal.
We were friends in class for a few months. Three months later, after I knew her, she had gotten her hair straightened, and she came to class dressed up more than normal. We flirted the whole class. The class was done at midnight. It was in Hollywood. You would go to this parking garage. I could hear her behind me walking through the parking garage with a friend, so I slowed down and tried to act like I was looking for my keys, my bag, and my car.
She came up and was like, “Is that your SUV? Can I drive it?” My parents were like, “Don’t ever let anybody drive your car. They’re not on your insurance,” or whatever. I didn’t want to blow it, so I let her drive. As she backed out of the parking spot, I tensed up. She was like, “I got this.” She tapped my leg, like, “Calm down.” She drove until 4:00 in the morning all over LA. We were going down weird streets. She’d make a turn, riding down this way. We were up to PCA. We were all over the place.
I had to catch a flight maybe four hours after we left. I flew back to Virginia and visited my parents. This was back when long-distance calls cost money. I talked to her the whole week I was in Virginia. My mom called me a month later and was like, “You came home and left me with a $400 phone bill.” We have been together ever since then.
You were together for how many years?
Twenty two years.
Melissa’s Passing
How did she pass? She also had a feeling that she might die young. What was that about?
She was an adventurer. She would go on these crazy hikes and all these different things. Her life goal was to hike the Pacific Coast Trail. She had a very successful photography business, so she couldn’t take the six months it needed to go from Mexico all the way up to Canada and do the trail. She would do two weeks every year and then start where she had finished the year before.
She had started doing this hike. She was doing it with a friend, and then the weather turned. It was supposed to be high 80s and low 90s. The day she died, it hit 110 degrees by 10:00 AM. They knew it was getting hotter and they were trying to get off the trail. They left at 2:30 in the morning with headlamps trying to get to a spot where they could get off the trail. She would start to fatigue around 9:00 or so in the morning. She ended up passing away from heat exhaustion.
Why did she have a feeling that she might die young?
I didn’t know this. It wasn’t anything that she had said to me. She had had a bunch of dreams and different experiences that led her to believe that it was going to happen. She wrote a letter to me that I didn’t know about. I found this letter maybe a month and a half after she had died. The first day after she died, I didn’t have anybody in my house. I wasn’t planning a memorial or I wasn’t fielding 1,000 calls. It was my first day by myself.
I was watching the show Ted Lasso. My dog was beside me on the couch. One character on the show said to another character, “Why’d you do that?” The other character goes, “We’re a team, aren’t we?” It triggered me because she would always say that to me. I was like, “You didn’t have to do that.” She was like, “We’re a team.” She would always say that to me.
I paused the show and I was crying again. My dog took advantage of this and came up to me with this ball. I threw the ball and it hit the wall, bounced out of the room, and went across the hallway into the bedroom. My dog didn’t come back after a couple of minutes, so I went in to see what was going on. He was trying to get to the ball underneath the bed, so I leaned down and tried to get it.
Right in front of the ball, there was a picture of Melissa with her grandma, and then behind the ball, there was this box that I had never seen before. It wasn’t mine. It was way up against the wall by the headboard. I pulled the box out and I started going through the box. It had a lot of our memorabilia in it, like if we went to a concert, different things, or different cards she had gotten from people.
The first card I pulled out was from her parents for our anniversary the year before. Her dad had said, “You guys are a great team,” in there. A few minutes before that, I started crying about the team thing, so I was blown away. I pulled out two cards from her friend, Lea. While I was holding these cards, Lea texted me and asked me about how I was doing. I was like, “This is weird.” She was like, “Are you okay?” I was like, “I’m having some weird coincidences right now.” We got on the phone for 45 minutes, and then I went back to the box later.
There were a few pages folded and it had Kevin written on there. I was like, “I hope I’m not reading the breakup letter she left me to give to me.” I open it up and the first thing it says is, “Kevin, if you’re reading this right now, then I’m probably no longer with you. I had a few dreams that made me think that I wasn’t going to live long. If you’re reading this, then I was right.” She went on for 3 or 4 pages, saying what our relationship meant to her, what she wanted me to do with my life going forward, how she wanted me to find joy and all of that.
What a beautiful blessing she gave you. What a gift. Did you take that when she said, “I want you to find joy?” Did you take that like, “Somehow, I have to figure out how I’m going to move on.”
I was more shocked about all the circumstances that led me to that because it was so random. I’ve thrown that ball in that place a million times and it never went under the bed or across the hallway in another room. There were all these weird steps and all the coincidences. I was way more amazed by that in the first few days. Later on, as years passed, I started to be like, “I’m going to start doing more things with my life and maybe possibly date or do some other stuff.” She gave me permission not to feel guilty about it.
When souls cross over, they get the overview. They get more of the universal picture. They don’t have jealousy over there or anything like that. All they want is for your happiness and your joy until they see you again, which they will. They’re around. I know that your song is titled Get to See You Again. I thought about the fact that I know that you had a session with a medium four months after Melissa transitioned. Was the song in any way connected with the thought of Get to See You Again? Was it because you had a session with a medium, and she must have come through for you?
The medium was great. She let me know that she went quickly and she wasn’t scared. That was great. She was letting me know how I knew that she was there for me in different ways. The whole session was great. That wasn’t the impetus for the song Get to See You Again. I went to bed every night for the first two years after Melissa died and I would be like, “Come see me in my dreams.” I’ve never been a good person about dreams. I always would wake up and I’d never remember anything.
One time, I had a dream about her and it was so real. Everybody was freaking out like, “What are you doing here? You died.” She was like, “I’m here.” Everybody ended up being convinced. Right when I finally relaxed and I was like, “You’re really here,” I woke up. It hurt so bad again. It was like it never happened and she died that day. I had to process that morning. That song, Get to See You Again, is about that. It’s like, “In the dreams, I get to see you again and hold you really tight like you never left. I wake up and it hurts all over again.”
Healing From Grief
It triggers you right back. You get these messages and all. You’re working on moving through to begin to heal, so you start writing about your grief. You also employed some other healing modalities. How did you start moving through? I read that you meditated. What else did you do?
In the beginning, I said yes to so many things. I had been a no person for a good decade. I hated things on my calendar. I liked being done with things. I was always like that. I got to the point where I was like, “If I keep saying no to these people when they’re out here trying to help me and trying to keep me company, then they’ll probably eventually stop asking and then I’ll be alone.” I started saying yes to stuff. That showed me how much people cared about me. It got me out of the house and got me doing things. I was able to talk about Melissa with them. I was able to talk through a lot of things. The number one thing I would say is to say yes to things. Don’t avoid people.
Saying yes to stuff showed me how much people cared about me. Share on X
That’s a big lesson you learned from going through this trauma and everything. You learned to open yourself up more.
When she died, all my bills doubled. Everything doubled, like my rent and my bills. I couldn’t afford to go to therapy right then. I journaled, so I wouldn’t keep these thoughts swirling in my head. I was scared I was going to forget things, so anytime I thought of something that I thought was special, I tried to write it down so I could always look back and remember those memories. That helped.
I read grief books and stuff that people sent me at first. They were helpful because I got to see that it is a universal thing that people are going through this and the way they feel. I would have people who had lost their husbands or lost their kids contact me. There were some people I knew, some people I didn’t know, and some people I wasn’t even close to. Those people helped a lot. I was able to look at their lives and look at what they were posting that day. They were in a way better place than I was at that time. I was like, “It’s possible to get to that point where you’re smiling in a picture.” After she died, I was like, “How am I going to ever write another exclamation point again?”
You’re lost.
Those people who reached out were helpful. I would run until it hurt. I would be physically tired from a run or exercising. That truly helped. Songwriting was always the way I made sense of the world, but I didn’t feel like writing after she died because she was with me when I got my first guitar. A lot of songs I wrote before were about our relationship, love, and all this stuff, so I didn’t even feel like playing those. I didn’t play for three months. When I first picked up the guitar, the first song on the album, Lost at Sea, fell out.
A few months passed by and then I revisited a song that I never put out. It was a love song that I wrote that felt generic. I was like, “I can’t finish this one.” I revisited it from a new perspective and I rewrote most of it, but I kept the chorus part. That was every time, and that was the second song on this album. A few more months passed and then I wrote Get to See You Again.
When I decided I needed to make the album, that’s when I wrote Cocoon. Cocoon is the last song on the album. That’s me saying, “I need a little bit more time and more of the old me,” like who I was when I was with her. I wasn’t the same anymore and I missed that guy and I missed her. It was making peace with that. I then realized I didn’t set out like, “I’m going to write an album called The Stages and this is what it’s about,” but when I looked at it, at each point where I wrote the song, I was at a different point in my healing. When I wrote Lost at Sea, I was lost. I was still in shock.
I’m sure everyone tuning in to this episode can relate to exactly what you’re talking about.
All the grief books were like, “Your grief is going to come in waves.” Everything was ocean-related. I was thinking that when I wrote Lost at Sea. By the time I wrote the 6th and 7th songs of the album, I was laughing with friends. I was getting excited about things. I was getting excited about a gig I had coming up. I was getting excited to see family that weekend. It wasn’t like all in the past that it was all sad all the time. I started trying to write from that perspective and that’s what led to the song Baby, We Made It.
To me, I was like, “Who’s celebrating our relationship other than me?” Your goal when you get together is death until you part. What happens when somebody dies? You made it to what the goal was. Nothing broke us up. All the ups and downs we had, we worked through them. It was death that separated us, so I was like, “Baby, we made it.” That was the song to celebrate the relationship because nobody else would. I hope that other people who were in relationships and lost their spouse could listen to a song like that and be proud of their relationship and not look at it with regret only.
The Best Version of Kevin
It’s a wonderful album for people who are struggling and moving through. They can relate to it. It’s a great comfort for them. It’s wonderful. I also know that you say that grief made you the best version of yourself. You had your past Kevin that was there. You’re lamenting and moving on. Who is this Kevin who is the best version of himself that we’re talking to?
It’s weird. You get in a relationship and be at home with that person. They become your world. You can have anger at the rest of the world. You can say stuff like, “I don’t have true friends,” and all these different things that you say as you go through a relationship. When this happens, then you realize that person really was there for you. They had lives. They weren’t ignoring you. They care. You realize this. The journaling stuff made me realize what I wanted for my life and then it made me want to go for that in my life more.
You get in a relationship, and that person becomes your world. Share on X
There’s also this feeling that they’re watching over you as soon as they leave. You don’t want to have this internal dialogue that’s way more negative or way more whatever because you feel like they can hear your thoughts and all this stuff. You want them to be proud of you. That’s all you want. You want to make sure that their life meant something to you and all these other things. You act in a way that you weren’t acting before because of how it went down.
I’m trying to figure out how to put it into words, but I have way more empathy for people. You would think I could look at a picture or her birthday would come up and that would be the thing that wrecked me. You’re steeled against that stuff. You’re ready for a picture. You’re ready for a birthday and all that. I had a couple of people that lost people and I would see them make that post on Facebook where they have to tell everybody. That was the worst part. That made it real to me, having to tell everybody that Melissa had died. I had to go on Facebook and be like, “Yesterday, Melissa died. I hate to tell you.”
I see people going through that and that kills me. I didn’t have that same kind of empathy before. You’d be like, “That’s terrible. That’s sad.” Now, when people are doing that, I’m like, “They’re in such shock right now. Their phone is never going to stop beeping for the next three weeks. Everybody is going to be texting them to see if they’re okay or if they need anything. They’re not going to have any quiet moments. They’re not going to be sleeping.” I think about all this stuff that I didn’t think about before. I had people die in my life before, but it never meant the same to me as it has since Melissa died.
She’s with you. She must be celebrating. I’m sure she’s very thrilled for you and watching you. You’ll see her again. You will be with her again. I experienced that with my husband, too. I know he’s around and he’s witnessing everything. Every once in a while, I have a few things to say to him and I’m sure he hears them.
Melissa believed in this more than anybody I knew. I was probably more skeptical about things. I remember the night she died. I was by myself. I was like, “It’s your chance to shine now. Let me see what you got.” I had so many moments that felt beyond coincidence to me that I felt like she was proving it to me over and over again.
Special Offer
I know you’ve got a special offer for a free download for your new album. Before we get to you telling everybody about that, what would you like to play for us? It’s a wonderful album. Everyone who is grieving would find it very inspiring and comforting as they’re going through their process. Choose what you’d like.
This is a part in Get to See You Again. “My heart aches and quakes. It takes a whole day to break out of this funk inside my head. I can’t wait to go to bed because sometimes, when I’m dreaming, I see you again. It don’t make no sense. It’s like losing a limb. With you, I was whole. Now, I’m in pieces again. I can’t wait to lay my head because sometimes, when I’m dreaming, I see you again.
I get to see you again and hold you really tight like you never left. A moment between us again before I wake up, and I lose you all over again. I cannot shake these thoughts that it’s all been for naught, though I’d do it all again to relive all I forgot. I can’t wait to go to bed because sometimes, when I’m dreaming, I see you again. I get to see you again and hold you really tight like you never left. A moment between us again before I wake up and I lose you all over again. It’s worth it to see you again.”
That’s beautiful.
Thanks.
Thank you so much for doing that for us. It’s beautiful. I know that each of the songs relates to the seven stages of grief, right?
Somehow, yeah. A little.
Do you want to tell everybody a little bit about that? You can also tell them about your offer for the downloads.
I’ll tell them about the offer first. You can go to Bandcamp. On Bandcamp, you can get a free download of my album, The Stages. Lost at Sea is the shock of losing someone. It’s hard because each song has different parts that relate to stuff. Every Time is about the pain you feel every time that you remember these things.
I have a song called Good to Feel Bad Sometimes. That song, a week before she left for that trip that she died on, I went into her office and I had written part of the first verse. I was like, “I have this idea. I say bad a lot on a verse and I say good a lot on the chorus.” I played a part of it and she didn’t even turn around. She was editing photos. She was like, “Keep working on it.” After she died, I revisited it and turned it into this. The most painful thing is remembering someone that you lost. It’s painful, but it’s also the greatest thing because you’re remembering them. I was like, “It’s good to feel bad sometimes.”
I had Get to See You Again, and then I had Baby We Made It. That’s a little bit more of an acceptance where I’m starting to look back with a fresh perspective of like, “We did something together. We made a life together. We did it. We did all that we could.” I have a song called Better Now. Better Now is all the advice that I was getting from people in the early days. They were like, “You need time. You need to do some journals and do all this stuff.” I was like, “I know one day, but that doesn’t make it better now.” That song was more about my response to that. That’s a little bit of the anger, but I didn’t write it like, “Shut up.” That was my annoyance with that stuff.
Cocoon was me deciding that I was going to live my life. It was like, “I’m here. She wants me to live my life. I need to live my life. It doesn’t mean I can’t have nostalgia and I can’t look back, but I need to look forward.” It was my last little moments of mourning old me and her together. The last line of the song is, “When I think of those two, they seem happy.” It’s the old me and her.
Finding Joy in Life
That’s wonderful. Thank you so much. I would like to know what is the Kevin Campbell tip for finding joy in life.
Do things that scare you. Melissa had so many goals, dreams, and different things she wanted to do. She was working on this project when she died which would’ve been really good for her. It was so great. I’m so bummed that she didn’t complete it. I think about that. I could sit there for the next ten years wishing I could do something or I could do it. If I’m not good at it, at least I know. I tried. There’s so much joy that I get out of trying things that I’m scared of.
The only reason why I’m in Raleigh was I started looking at other cities that I could play a lot in. LA was still coming off of COVID at the time and a lot of things were shut down. LA didn’t want you. A lot of clubs don’t want you playing week after week at another place. You have to wait a little longer in LA. I was like, “I need to get out and play a lot because that brings me joy.”
I went all the way across the country where I didn’t know anybody based on being able to play. I’ve been here and I’ve been playing more than I ever have in my life. I’ve been getting a lot of opportunities. I was on the radio not long ago, playing. I’ve been doing a lot of things I wasn’t doing as much in LA. I’m glad that I did that because I’ve gotten a lot of joy from it. You need to do things that make you scared.
Do things that make you scared. Share on X
Go outside your comfort zone. You can always turn back if it doesn’t work out for you. I’ve found that, too, but I keep pushing. This show is past my comfort zone. You keep going and you keep growing and learning from it. That’s wonderful. You wrote about the loss of your precious Melissa and your grief process via the meaningful songs on your new album, The Stages.
I really encourage everyone to get Kevin’s album because it’s wonderful. You not only helped yourself as you were going through your grief journey, but you’re helping so many others who are also experiencing grief. I want to give you my heartfelt thanks for this wonderful new album, The Stages, for introducing us to your song and for this really special interview on the show. It’s such a pleasure to know you. Many blessings. Thank you so much.
Thanks for having me.
It is my pleasure. As I like to say to our audience, to be continued. Many blessings. Thanks again.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Guest’s Links:
- Email Kevin for links to his music and download codes
- Get a free download of Kevin’s latest album called The Stages on Bandcamp
- Check out Kevin’s latest album called The Stages which chronicles his journey through the stages of grief
- Connect with Kevin Campbell on Instagram or Facebook
About Kevin Campbell
“This is the album I didn’t want to write,” says Kevin Campbell. “Eventually, I felt that I needed to in order to move forward.” Recorded at Good Luck Studios in Chapel Hill and produced by Jon Shain, this album explores the stages of grief and metamorphosis.
Originally drawn to writing and directing TV & film, Kevin moved to Los Angeles and occasionally caught his dream, starring in numerous commercials and shows, and writing-directing a web series and a pilot for the TV network FX. It was songwriting, though, that dominated his waking thoughts. For 15 years Kevin was a fixture in the Los Angeles singer-songwriter scene. The Stages, his 6th album release, is his most personal to date.
Writing about life, love and loss has always brought Kevin tremendous joy, but after losing his girlfriend of 22 years during the spring of 2021, the thought of writing about this experience made him sick. Ten months later, Kevin moved to Raleigh for a fresh start and an opportunity to piece his life back together. Eventually, he let the song ideas he pushed from his mind in. Realizing that writing about his loss, could help himself and others going through grief, the songs poured out of him.
The seven songs that make up The Stages, capture the whirlwind of feelings Kevin experienced going through the well known 7 stages of grief: shock and denial, pain and guilt, anger and bargaining, depression, the upward turn, reconstruction and working through, acceptance and hope. The album also expresses the deep affection Kevin shared with his late love, Melissa. A mix of styles ranging from, blues, soul, jazz, funk, folk, country and r&b, Kevin’s songwriting makes this album cohesive, and the music makes you want to listen again.
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