By Tom Flanigan
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wfsu/local-wfsu-914953.mp3
Tallahassee, FL – A young musician who is a four-time cancer survivor gave a free concert Monday at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital. Tom Flanigan reports that Ryan Hamner's "Hear the Heart" tour includes many stops at hospitals and hospices.
Every sign says that Ryan Hamner is poised at the edge of stardom. Some of his music has been licensed to popular cable T-V networks. His tune "Lay Me Down" was a modest national hit last year. The great Jeff Tomei, who's worked with super-groups like Matchbox 20 and Smashing Pumpkins, produced Hamner's new album. But Hamner's life and music still reflect the fact that, by the time he was twenty-one, he'd survived four bouts with Hodgkin's lymphoma.
"It's something I wanted to do with the first record label I was with. I told them that I wanted to connect my life story, with being sick with Hodgkin's, with my music."
Whenever he's out on tour, Hamner makes a point to play for free at local hospitals, research centers, and other facilities that deal with the dreaded disease and its victims.
"All in all I think, and I hope, that it's doing a really good thing for patients and their families."
That includes the many people, patients and otherwise, who caught at least a portion of Hamner's free concert at the Tallahassee Memorial Hospital Atrium.