On the road again

There’s a musical marking called a repeat sign — a colon followed by two vertical bars — that can send musicians right back to the beginning of their work. Sometimes, that’s not where they’d rather be.

A dozen years had come and gone since David M. Bailey first used his guitar as a secret weapon during his recovery from a brain tumor. He’d ditched the business world to return to his singer-songwriter roots in search of a more genuine, heartfelt career to make the most of his second chance at life.

He built and sustained three distinct fan bases — folk music fans, church audiences and medical groups that included everyone from doctors, nurses and cancer researchers to fellow survivors and families. Each found something to cheer about in original music that resonated on a personal level. People bought his CDs, invited him to speak at conferences and kept up with his touring schedule.

Last autumn, he’d just returned home to Albemarle County after a successful tour of the United Kingdom, Denmark and Sweden.

“I was at the top of my game,” Bailey said. “Every show was better than the last.”

He started getting dizzy and stumbling over words, but wrote it off to jet lag. Then he was in the recording studio, playing his guitar, and he leaned toward the microphone to sing.

“I couldn’t find my pitch,” Bailey said. “For me, that’s like breathing.”

Doctors found an eight-centimeter cyst full of fluid — pressing on exactly the spot in his brain that recognizes pitch —and something else.

A recurrence of his serious grade-four brain tumor. “The big nasty,” Bailey said.

He had successful surgery in November, then another procedure in December to get “hardware in my head for nuclear medicine,” he said. Next came chemotherapy. He spent Christmas Eve in the emergency room.

“It’s like someone picked up my Scrabble board and dumped all the pieces,” Bailey said. “My first reaction on walking out of the hospital in November was, ‘It’s not fair. I’ve already fought this battle.’

“Then I had a reality check. It’s not fair that I’ve lived 12 years, either.”

Fast-forward to March. Bailey is performing again, balancing touring with treatment. He had an encouraging clear MRI earlier this week, followed by another round of chemotherapy. And next week, he will present his first two local performances since his recurrence.

Tuesday afternoon brings an appearance for one of his favorite audiences, the University of Virginia School of Nursing, in McLeod Hall Auditorium. Then, on Wednesday evening, he’ll take the stage to open Garnet Rogers’ show at Gravity Lounge.

“It’s always a good vibe in that room,” Bailey said of his McLeod Hall gig. “They know they can hear things from me that they’ll never hear from anyone else.”

And he said he’s pleased that Gravity owner Bill Baldwin chose him to open Wednesday’s show.

“When I heard him play and sing, it was like listening to a brother,” Bailey said of Rogers.

Now that he’s getting a handle on his new routine of treatment and traveling, Bailey’s also “just itching to get back in the studio,” he said.

That’s because one part of the grand repeat is welcome: he can’t seem to stop writing.

Just as in 1996, when his first victory over cancer ignited a creative period that yielded songs that touched people’s hearts, “the floodgates just opened after my surgery,” he said.

Some of the new material picks up on earlier messages of hope, faith, perseverance and focusing on what matters most in life and amplifies the sentiments, Bailey said. He’s having fun following older songs with the newer ones that take already satisfying musical ideas and run with them.

“It’s been a rocky road, but I’m still walking,” Bailey said.

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