It's been fun this past week playing with Walter Parks, an amazing guitarist and composer. He used to tour as guitarist with Richie Havens for ten years or so before Richie passed away. It's times like these when I sure wish I was touring enough to be able to hire someone like Walter Parks to back me up for ten years or so. There would be something special, if so, I believe.

After a string of wonderful but sometimes perplexing music experiences, I'm led to ponder the meaning of music to people nowadays. Sometimes I think that music used to mean more to people than it does now. Americans have a musical heritage, but if it's not too many golden oldies in a loop sequence at the convenience store, than it's those who rehash the music that they grew up with, as if there has not been anything created since. I know how good the music was in the 60s and 70s, I was there. I was a kid, but I heard it everywhere, especially through my older sisters.
I now write music in response to everything and everyone around me. Those people like me are, in real and present time, in good or bad times, in the practice of keeping our lives and stories breathing, now. This is "us." We are our own developing heritage now. Current life and people are worth singing about.

The New Project

This morning as I entered in credit cards numbers, I was very glad to be finishing the order for my new recording project. The project itself has taken over a year, close to a year and a half if I account for the pre-recording work. Still, within the last 24 hours of working on the graphics for the packaging, we made 26 edits -- 26. I'm broke, and I never want to hear myself again. I truly hope that people like this recording, because I actually made it for them. As I said, I don't want to hear myself again. : )

Every year I study up on Robert Burns' music for the Burns' celebrations that I sing in. I learn a new song every year. I'm wondering if Robert Burns had a fetish about making love in fields, or if it was just that during his cultural time frame you could not mention beds. (tongue in cheek humor...e're yae aboot to take the lass too ser'slee.)

Subject of the day...thank you notes.
I've just spent the last two days writing thank you notes to people who over the past few months have hired me or have supported music projects that I've worked on. I like to thank people and think it necessary and proper, but additionally notice how the act of writing the notes brings to light exactly how many people it takes to make anything happen. It also nurtures my gratitude and appreciation. I have three more handwritten notes to write before I am done for the evening. Thank you all for being there.

What I'd Really Like to Do

Today's work consists of some things that did not get done yesterday, and then a look at what needs to be done for upcoming events, while all the time in the back of my mind what I'd really like to do is to change the world for the better. There are a list of world issues that I would like to address and it seems that I'm not alone in this. But as an individual, I feel powerless in comparison to the weight of the mass. I have been dismissed one too many times by people in positions of power and with money, which has sent me a message of insignificance. And I sense that people are quite entrenched in their habitual assumptions about the world. But in my mind and body, I feel the steps to change the world for the better, they are there. I wonder, what one person can do to change the world for the better, if they want to. I think about it every day.

The Great Rosanne Cash and Band

Opening a concert for Rosanne Cash is definitely worth a blog post. 

Last night in Layton, UT, I opened for her and her band at the Kennley Centennial Arts Center, a wonderful outdoor venue with a dedicated staff of people from the Davis Arts Council and a large body of volunteers. This venue is well suited for music, it's good for listening and can host over a thousand people without losing a feeling of intimacy between the performers and the audience. It well showcased Rosanne and her accompanying musicians. The band of course, is in itself an art form, to be expected from such topnotch musicians, but seemingly without ego they put the music in the right place. 

I just want to say that Rosanne is an artist so worthy of accolades, so dedicated to American music, so deep in her interpretation of song, that is was a true honor to open a concert for her. I'm still studying my heart for the ways that it moved me. The evening of music, her 90-minute set of powerful songs and musical artistry, reinforced my reverence for the importance and vitality of music as a whole, and the depth of music as a vehicle for love, wisdom and beauty.