Vendor Spotlight

Carl B. puts his song book and life back together

BY HANNAH HERNER

In the quiet of his hotel room, Carl Deblasio tries to put his song book back together. He says losing that book was like cutting off an arm.

“It’s almost like a photo album,” Deblasio says. “I can look back at those songs and know exactly where I was at, and what was going on in my life. I can take myself to where I was emotionally, what I was feeling.”

When he was in the hospital after having a stroke, people who camped with him stole his guitar, songbook and anything else of value. But the solitude of the hotel — as compared to a shelter where he was staying before — helps to try and remember years worth of songs lost. There’s a sense of urgency, too. Deblasio has blindness in both eyes and a family history of dementia.

“Here it’s quiet, I can hear my song in my head,” he says.

That stroke, combined with a marriage that fell apart and the death of his parents, compounded to put Deblasio out on the streets. He says staying at a local shelter put him in a funk. He was full of regret and became reclusive. Panhandling was something he tried, but was really uncomfortable with.

Deblasio says the last five months selling The Contributor at Murfreesboro Rd and Thompson Lane have started to turn things around for him. Far from reclusive, these days, Deblasio is as chatty as can be.

“I told a guy the other day, ‘now you realize if you keep standing there I’m just going to keep talking,’” he laughs.

Describing himself as, ‘just a lonely old man,’ Deblasio loves when customers roll down their windows just to talk. Money becomes secondary at those times.

“I had no idea what The Contributor would do for me,” he says. “I was hoping to have a few dollars in my pocket, but for me personally I was able to get outside of myself. I was no longer ashamed. I felt I had a legitimate business and I could talk to people eye to eye, on their level. I didn’t have to be so ashamed of being homeless. Everyday I woke up it gave me purpose.”

Deblasio was never a shy person to begin with. He spent 30 years as a professional drummer, and a lot of that meant performing onstage; being part of a backing band on cruises, in shows in Las Vegas, and for new artists coming through Nashville. He misses that.

“Anytime you cut off the ability to be creative, something is missing,” he says. “When you’re playing music, sometimes it’s laborious and you really have to work at it. But if you do it consistently and often, there are nights when it’s effortless. It’s like a runner’s high. I had never experienced that from running, but I had from drums.”

Through The Contributor’s C.O.V.E.R. program, social workers got Deblasio into the temporary hotel, and just moved him into another room to stay for a full year. He’s gotten to watch some of his favorite Westerns in peace and even cook some of his own meals. On his desk at the hotel sits an application to become a member of a church he used to attend while at the shelter. More than anything though, Deblasio says he’s happy to have a clean shower to use and not to have to guard his valuables.

“Being able to lay down and close my eyes and be able to rest without having to keep my head on a swivel with one eye open — it’s been amazing,” he says.

It’s freedom that he didn’t have before, to come and go as he pleases, and a safe place to keep his biggest valuable, his song book.

“When I go out to work and come back, this room and The Contributor has given me a glimpse again of something that I forgot about. At one time I was just a regular guy and I worked hard and I had a place to live,” he chokes up. “This reminded me of something that I had forgotten and circumstances took from me. It’s giving me a glimpse of not only what was but what could be again, if only I can stay the course.”