{"id":2171,"date":"2026-05-03T17:12:43","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T23:12:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rosieandtheoriginals.com\/wordpress\/articles\/fibromyalgia-aware-mag-dec-04"},"modified":"2026-05-13T03:12:06","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T09:12:06","slug":"fibromyalgia-aware-mag-dec-04","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.rosieandtheoriginals.com\/wordpress\/articles\/fibromyalgia-aware-mag-dec-04","title":{"rendered":"Fibromyalgia Aware Magazine \u2014 Dec ’04"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

October 14, 2011 | Written by Elisabeth Deffner<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Four years ago, when she discovered she had received a grant from the California Council of Arts to teach music to underprivileged children, Rosalie Hamlin, now 59, had just returned to her New Mexico home after a long stay in California. So she packed everything she had just unpacked and headed back to the Golden State, settling in a small San Diego County town not far from where she grew up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Excited as she was about the program, she could not shake the exhaustion that had latched onto her during the move. Her back, shoulders and neck were especially tender \u2013 perhaps, she thought, she had pulled a muscle while packing. Or maybe she had the flu. She went to a chiropractor, Dr Tortora, recommended by her aunt Rachael Ortiz. But no matter what he did, her back only worsened. And the pain was starting to spread.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“One day he said to me, ‘Have you ever heard of fibromyalgia?'” Hamlin recalls. “I said no.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as Hamlin \u2013 the lead singer of Rosie and the Originals, the band that recorded her composition “Angel Baby” in 1960 \u2013 discovered, fibromyalgia was precisely the cause of her exhaustion and pain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Angel Baby<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When Hamlin was just 13, she auditioned for a band by singing “Dark Moon” over the phone, telling them she was 16. She performed several times with them at the Bostonia Ballroom on the outskirts of San Diego. “At the end of the evening, somebody from the band would pass the hat around, and they would give me whatever was in the hat. I remember having $20, $30 sometimes,” she says with a chuckle. “I didn’t even want to tell my mother where this money was coming from. I told her I had a babysitting job.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two years later a friend of Hamlin’s uncle introduced her to some young local musicians: guitarist Noah Tafolla, drummer Carl Von Goodat, and bandleader David Ponci and Tony Gomez. They rehearsed in the Hamlin family garage and got a few gigs. More importantly, Hamlin showed the band a song she had written. During the summer of 1960, amid the scattered parts in an old airplane hanger, they recorded “Angel Baby” \u2013 with Rosie singing and playing the piano.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Angel Baby” became a hit, but by the end of the summer the band had already foundered. At 16, Hamlin moved on, marrying 19-year-old guitarist Tafolla. They had two children, but divorced after three years of marriage. Three years later, she married again, and gave birth to her third child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hamlin continued to sing and became the first Latino to be honored by the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in the one hit wonders section. Her resume is filled with concerts across the country, some of them benefits, like fund-raisers to get Ritchie Valens a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and performances from remote concerts for the Jerry Lewis Telethon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Volunteer work has always been important to Rosie. Her musical talents allowed her to raise funds and awareness for the causes closes to her heart: Latino causes and benefits for the underprivileged, especially children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Breaking Free of the Cycle of Pain<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Hamlin has come a long way from the 15-year-old girl who sang a song about her secret crush, creating a smash hit. Now, once again living in a small town in New Mexico, Hamlin is struggling to navigate the rocky road of the social security disability process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Currently her music and tax attorney is working with the IRS, since a New York organization has allegedly been collecting royalties for a number of artists, including Hamlin. Its misuse of Hamlin’s tax identification number has made it appear as though she earned more money than she actually did, delaying her disability case for several years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I was alone in my place, and I was having all sorts of depression, mainly because I didn’t really know what was wrong with me,” Hamlin recalls. “I just couldn’t get it in my head that you could hurt so badly in one area, and then three or four hours later hurt someplace else. That’s what made me really think I was losing my mind.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I spent six months to a year of pacing at night, and just crying because of the extreme burning,” she says. “The concentration was equally as bad. I was afraid to talk to anybody on the phone. I couldn’t carry on a coherent conversation a lot of the time, and that made me emotionally frustrated.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Light in the Darkness<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Hamlin discovered that the maker of Oxycontin offers a patient assistance program, for which she qualified. MusiCares, a foundation that offers help to musicians in need, recently made four of her house payments for her. Singer Al Wilson, a longtime friend of Hamlin’s, is organizing a benefit concert to provide assistance and raise awareness of fibromyalgia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It’s very hard to put into words the horror that I went through for about two and a half years. Finally I became aware of Fibromyalgia AWARE magazine, which a friend sent me. I became aware of all the research going on, how many people actually have it, and I didn’t feel as alone in this situation.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of a rigorous concert schedule, Hamlin is using her talents to create oil paintings that she sells on her website along with her CDs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The pain that I experienced is worse than breaking a leg or childbirth,” Hamlin says simply. “I never knew there could be pain so intense and ongoing. I hope that my story will help other people that have it seek better treatment if they need it.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

October 14, 2011 | Written by Elisabeth Deffner Four years ago, when she discovered she had received a grant from the California Council of Arts to teach music to underprivileged children, Rosalie Hamlin, now 59, had just returned to her New Mexico home after a long stay in California. So she packed everything she had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":2169,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"full-width-page.php","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2171","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rosieandtheoriginals.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rosieandtheoriginals.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rosieandtheoriginals.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rosieandtheoriginals.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rosieandtheoriginals.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2171"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rosieandtheoriginals.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2250,"href":"https:\/\/www.rosieandtheoriginals.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2171\/revisions\/2250"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rosieandtheoriginals.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rosieandtheoriginals.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}