Saturday, Feb. 7, 1998

Making his own music

West Oso graduate hopes CD's a hit

By DEBORAH MARTIN
Staff Writer

   Performer DeAlan's road to what he hopes will be fame and fortune began with a rubber check for $1,600.
   The Corpus Christi native knew he didn't have the money to cover it -- not when he was writing it, anyway. The $3,200 in his checking account would be swallowed whole by a check he had written moments earlier for the first and last months' rent on a Manhattan office for his company-to-be. The $1,600 was for the security deposit on the place, an expense he hadn't expected.
   He believed that he had to write that second check to get his career off the ground. And he was sure that if he wrote it, the money would come, somehow.
   He wrote it.
   He got the money.
   And within a few months, his businesses -- 1-2-3 Entertainment Corporation, a talent agency, and DeAlan Wilson Photography -- were thriving in that Fifth Avenue space.
   Things are going well enough that one and a half years later, he and his partners are launching a record label, JeDa Records. DeAlan can already picture himself running a ``little Motown'' some day.
   ``What happened is that after years of having this in the back of my mind, I decided, `DeAlan, if you want to make some money doing this, you've got to get your own doggone label,''' he said during a recent visit with his mom, who still lives here.
   He didn't have to look far to find JeDa's first recording artist. It's him.
   ``I'm going to be the test. I'm the guinea pig,'' he said. ``If I can't do it for myself, I can't do it for anybody else.''
    Doing it for himself
   DeAlan has finished work on three singles -- ``Distant Lover,'' ``Summer Rain'' and ``Darker Skies.'' ``Distant Lover'' is slated to hit record stores on Monday.
   The singles give a small taste of the full-length CD he plans to put out in August. He's putting the finishing touches on it now.
   JeDa Records has no ties to the major labels, so making the public aware of the singles could be tough. Without the distribution and publicity machines of the big boys, it's usually hard for a performer to get any airplay at all.
   To increase his chances, DeAlan had producer Chris ``The Greek'' Panaghi mix versions of ``Distant Lover'' ranging from a stripped-down ballad to a propulsive dance track. The more versions there are, DeAlan reasons, the more stations he can pitch it to and the more likely it will be that a few of them will add it to their playlists.
   Even if his music is never introduced by a radio DJ, though, that's OK with him.
   ``The people buy records, not the radio stations,'' he said. ``I want to take them directly to the people.''
   To do that, he's planning a string of CD release parties at dance clubs along the East Coast and across Texas. (He is still trying to work out the details for one in Corpus Christi.) At each bash, he'll perform and sell copies of the disc.
   He figures the club tour will give him the right amount of fame: Enough to boost CD sales, but not so much that he won't be able to slip into a nightclub or movie theater without being mobbed by fans.
    Corpus Christi roots
   His desire for some measure of fame drives his need to succeed in the entertainment industry.
   It was during his time at West Oso High School that he got his first tiny taste of fame. In those days, he was still going by his given name, Dwayne Alan Wilson. He won so many University Interscholastic League competitions in performance categories that his competitors knew who he was before they ever laid eyes on him.
   ``I thought, `This feels good!' '' he said, laughing.
   Beyond feeling good, he quickly realized that the money that usually accompanies fame would give him the means to control his destiny. It would also give him a way to ``help other talented people who deserve to be helped.''
   After he graduated from West Oso in 1983, he studied theater and marketing at Prairie View A&M University. Then he headed off to New York to study at the Alvin Ailey American Dance School, intent on becoming a Broadway star.
   He landed roles in a few off-Broadway shows, and worked a couple of national tours. But the stage, he decided, wouldn't get him the fame he craved.
   ``Broadway isn't making stars any more,'' he said. ``The masses don't know who Betty Buckley is. You've got to do something that has mass appeal.''
   Music, it seemed to him, was the only way to go. To pay for his voice lessons, he went to work for a Wall Street firm. His lessons eventually took a backseat as he started to move up in the company, working his way from telephone operator to a $50,000-a-year job as a supervisor.
   Then the roof fell in.
   He was laid off. He spent nine months looking for something that paid the same kind of money and required the same level of responsibility.
   He didn't find anything.
   He vowed that, if he could help it, he would never again put himself in a position where someone could take his livelihood from him. He would have to make his own opportunities from there on in.
   He started taking stock of his talents, trying to figure out what he could do that people would pay him for. He settled on photography, something that he had dabbled in since his mother gave him his first camera when he was 8.
   In New York -- where every other waiter is an unemployed actor in need of good head shots -- he was soon doing well enough to move his small business from his Bronx apartment into a small space attached to a modeling agency.
   That relationship lead him to Judy Camacho, with whom he found himself sitting in the office of a real estate company, nervously writing that fateful check for $1,600.
   Ultimately, he said, being fired was good for him: ``It pushed me out of the nest. If I was in a secure Wall Street job, I wouldn't be doing this.''