Vince Bell's debut album, Phoenix, landed him high on many best-of-year lists. While touring in the United States and Europe to support that recording, and preparing for a new release in 1998, he wrote this autobiographical work.
One Man's Music begins when a drunk driver traveling at 65-miles-per hour broadsided Bell's car and sent him into a coma until the following month. He awoke with a significant head injury, broken ribs, a damaged liver, a mangled right arm, and a premature death notic in the local paper.
One Man's Music is his story of over a decade of rehabilitation.
ONE MAN'S MUSIC
Wins Austin, TX Mayor's Award
The Mayor's Committee For People With Disabilities has given Vince a special award for his book.
The "Austin Mayor's Chairperson Commendation Award" was presented to him
at the 20th Annual awards ceremony in Austin, on 26 October at the Holiday Inn South.
The banquet and program featured keynote speaker Jim Dickson,
director of Community Affairs for the National Organization on Disability.
Excerpt From
One Man's Music,
Day 19, Intensive Care Unit
"I spent my days at the hospital while Vince was in a coma," said Kathleen Vick, my manager at the time, "and visited him as often as they would let us in. At first I was quiet and scared to touch him. Well, going in whining and crying and whispering was not getting us there, so I started whipping him around a little bit. Grabbing him, pushing on him, and talking loudly to him. I also had the idea to bring in the tapes of the sessions he had been recording. 'If you're going to still be alive then you can just get back to work. Take your pick: die or get back to work!'
In the midst of all this, my smallish mother with a comfortable Southern accent came to my bedside and said, "Vince, this is your mother. Can you move your arm for your mother? Vince, this is your mother. Why don't you move your arm for your mother?" This in addition to the wagging tongues and crossed eyes of my friends.
"Vince, this is you mother. Can you move your arm for your mother?"
As the story goes, I slowly raised my left arm, without opening my eyes, and shot her the bird. She became tearfully exuberant, laughing and crying at the same time, and proceeded to fuss around the intensive care floor telling everyone, "That's my Vince. He flipped me off. He's going to be just fine!"
My close friend Bob Sturtevant added, "We all just laughed out loud...We knew that he might be asleep on the outside, but he was awake on the inside, and it was a great relief to all of us."
"It's a counted-out-for-dead come-back story," says Vince. "But it's no more extraordinary than anyone else's, just different."
Book Review
Austin, TX Traumatic Brain Injury Organization Newsletter
by Jeff Cannon, Brain Injury Survivor
Title: ONE MAN'S MUSIC
Author: VINCE BELL
Pages: 204
This book is about an Austin musician who had a car wreck in December 1982 and was found face down on the ground unconscious but breathing spontaneously. He was transferred to the hospital where they performed an exploratory laparatomy, repaired multiple liver lacerations and a bilateral tube thoracostomies. He also had a brain injury and an injury to his right arm. This book is about his ten year rehabilitation of the music he loved. It tells in great detail about his struggles to return to making music. The author now lives in Tennessee with his wife Sarah, his border collie and three cats. His debut album Phoenix landed him high on many best-of-the-year lists. While touring the United States and Europe to support the recording, and preparing for a new CD release in 1999, he wrote his autobiographical work.
One Man's Music takes you on a journey through all of the trials and tribulations of having a brain injury, as well as all of the steps one would need to return to some form of meaningful life; and how scary it all was and how much time it all took. This book was very interesting to me and I had a hard time putting it down. It was also very realistic. It touched me personally because I also have a brain injury and it showed me how if I work very hard I can overcome the injury. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who has had a brain injury or knows someone who has one.
