A Lifelong Love Of Music
Music has always been a part of my life. I grew up with the Beatles, seating on the window of my apt playing the guitar and trying to sing. At least the words were not complicated. When we got together in Brittany, France, the evenings always turned to songs. Everyone new a song. The Bretons love to sing and dance and that is in my DNA. I have always brought that with me wherever I went.
I remember sitting on the steps of Chez Daniel Restaurant, in Charlotte, with the dishwasher, a country boy from the mountains, and jamming on our guitars at the end of the service. I hired a good friend and great musician, Conrad Hunter, to book bands for the new place I opened in Charlotte, the Artist Café, and we would sit with some of the greatest American artist after the shows and eat and talk music and life.
Finding God
It was a very hard time for me, but it’s also when I had my first experience with God and became a believer.
Joanne decide to come visit with the kids that summer. I hired a cook that preached Jesus to me and my life totally changed when I accepted. Joanne and I got back together, I did not curse anymore, I stop smoking cigarettes and all I could do is read the bible. I had changed.
In Vermont, as a teacher, I learned to respect the cook, the student. I started looking at life in a different way. Lots of students expected me to be “French.” You know, scream, curse and throw a fit, but that was not my nature anymore.
We moved to Georgia and I started working within the corporate world. And that was another change. When I did the dinner for President Jimmy Carter’s daughter, Amy, at the Windsor Hotel, I listen to his speech and felt humbled and fortunate to be there that I had tear in my eyes. I saw him coming for dinner and shake hand with every customer in the house. Nobody asked him. What a humble man I thought. I for the first time felt like I belonged in this country. I wanted to be a good father and a husband and be there for my children. It brought me back to my childhood and the dedication that my mother had.
When I moved to Kansas City many expected me to be like the “typical French Chef” but soon realized that was not me. I had changed. Last year I became an American citizen. I still have deep feelings toward my home town, but I belong here.
I tell my children this: I am first a Christian in my heart, a Breton always — French in my mind and American in the soul. A citizen of the Universe.
Forming Rivers Of Life Music
In 1990, I became a follower of Jesus Christ. I went in the street with my church group and ministered to homeless and the lost. It is there, in Georgia, that I started writing songs and melodies about my faith. I wrote them down and kept them for years never thinking that one day I would put them on record. I met many good friends that suggested and helped me realize this project.
My mission today remains that all things are possible if you believe. I simply enjoy God’s intimacy and presence and experience His love. I write hoping to encourage people to come on the journey and be who they were made to be.
Learn more at patrickquillec.com
