Singer-songwriter overcomes cancer, throat surgery
Written by Vicki L. Kroll | | news@toledofreepress.com
Dan May
Dan May never gives up. Cancer, vocal chord surgery, blown hip. His story could be a best seller that makes a heck of a movie.
“I went to a semester of college and just felt like it wasn’t for me, and then I went into the Air Force, and I was a nuclear missile security specialist. I contracted a rare form of cancer — lung, bone, liver, brain — and I was medically retired,” he said.
“When I was first diagnosed, they gave me three months to a year to live. And I was only 20 years old, and I came home and I did the whole chemotherapy and radiation and all that, and it didn’t do much good,” May recalled during a call from his Philadelphia home. “They also said I had acromegaly, which is gigantism, that I shouldn’t worry about the acromegaly because the cancer would kill me before that would kick in. So three months, a year, came and went, and I was still hanging in there.”
The native of Sandusky, Ohio, went to see an endocrinologist at the University of Michigan.
“[The doctor] found that there was a connection that the growth hormone was stimulating the tumors, and then if he could suppress the growth hormone, the tumors in theory would stop growing,” May said. “I started taking four injections of [an experimental drug] a day, and it worked like a charm. I’ve been on that for 28 years, 30 years, almost. The tumors are all still there, but they stopped growing.”
He worked a lot of jobs — TV cameraman, gravedigger, ice cream truck driver, track coach — before going back to school.
“I was a journalism major at Bowling Green,” May said. “I was actually in my senior year at Bowling Green when I transferred to Ohio State and to music … I went in as a composition major; I wanted to be a composer.”
Then someone heard May sing and suggested he try opera.
“I had never seen an opera; I wasn’t a fan, but after singing it, I loved it,” he said.
The bass baritone received a four-year scholarship to the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia and then sang professionally for 12 years.
“I had a paralyzed vocal chord and I had surgery. I lost a lot of my volume. There’s no amplification in opera; it’s just raw voice over the orchestra,” he said. “I had lost a lot of volume and ended up retiring.”
Then May became a ballet dancer for a few years — until he needed a hip replacement and retired in 2000.
Since then, the pianist has returned to one of his first passions — songwriting. He’s released four CDs, including 2008’s “Long Road Home,” and is recording a new disc that will be out next spring.
“It’s Americana, it’s roots rock, kind of based on rock and folk and a little bit of country,” May said of his music.
“A lot of people say they’re able to connect with it on a personal level even though I don’t write from an autobiographical point of view; I’m a storyteller. But a little bit of me sneaks into every song. If something in there can touch somebody, I guess that’s what I’m aiming for — people can take my words and find some sort of meaning in their own personal situation.”
May will play Dec. 11 at the Clazel Theater in Bowling Green. Tickets are $12 in advance, $15 day of show. Doors open at 7 p.m.
Tags: Dan May
