The Song Journal

Fall/Winter songwriting workshop and Joan Sherman's "Getting the Gig" workshop in Peabody, MA

2011-11-01T20:51:00.001-04:00

Due to popular demand, Joan Sherman and I are opening our living room in
Peabody, MA to two workshop series starting on Wednesday, November 9.
Joan will present her oft-requested class "Getting the Gig." Whether you
are looking to play gigs around your neighborhood or across the country,
the skills and knowledge required are the same. In her five-week
course, Joan will take you through defining and marketing yourself,
resources for finding venues, how to approach and work with presenters,
how to build relationships and, finally, how to land that contract.
Joan's "Getting the Gig" workshop will be held on Wednesday evenings,
Nov. 9, Nov. 16, Nov. 30, Dec. 7 and Dec. 14, beginning at 7:30 pm.

I will offer my "Songwriting from the Center" workshop on Thursday
evenings during the same period. The workshop begins with a lecture on
the many resources available to songwriters and continues with
individually crafted songwriting assignments designed to teach the
nuts-and-bolts issues of putting together effective and appealing songs.
The assignments will form the basis of new songs that will be shared in
a respectful and constructive group critique. I have been teaching this
workshop across the US and Canada for over 20 years; my job will be, as
it always has been, to create a safe environment in which songwriters
can grow and learn. "Songwriting from the Center" will occur on Nov. 10,
Nov. 17, Dec. 1, Dec. 8, and Dec. 15, beginning at 7:30 pm.

Cost for each series will be $200 payable at the first session. For
those opting to take both series, we will offer both for $300, a savings
of $100.

Those interested in taking advantage of this opportunity should email
Joan at joan@bobfranke.com. We anticipate that these workshops will fill up
quickly, so take a look at your calendar and get in touch as soon as you
can.

Why I didn't congratulate you

2010-03-13T10:47:00.002-05:00

I like to think I've got an open mind and at least average hearing. When you walked on the stage to open for one of my favorite bands last night, I was ready to listen. But when I realized that, only 6 feet in front of you, I was only catching about 25% of your lyrics, I started to get annoyed. You're an adult, man. I've heard your name on the circuit. I write songs with meaning, and I suspect that you're trying to do that, too. The percentage went up to 75% by the end of the set, and that fact, plus the occasional interesting image and character, and the fact that you kept to the 25 minutes allotted to you, almost got me back on your side.

Almost, but not quite. There was a roomful of people there who had paid for tickets, and you were asking more energy from them than you were giving them. I know that engineers have been telling you for years they can fix it in the mix, and producers have been telling you that your lyrics can go up on the web. But all you had last night was the moment, and you blew that with me and with my wife. I suspect that you blew it with most of the audience as well, and they, like us, were open to listening to you.

Songs are such tiny artifacts that, in a well-written song, they need and use every word they've got. If you don't show respect each one of those words, how do you expect your audience to do more? Hard to do in a bar where folks have a variety of agendas, I know. But that's not where you were last night.

Waterbug Anthology 9

2010-02-19T13:41:00.004-05:00

I've never been prouder of a song of mine than "My Next Drink", and the company Andrew Calhoun has surrounded it with on Waterbug Anthology 9 is astonishing to me, as it will be even to those of you who might think that any singer-songwriter album that doesn't suck is astonishing. A new Leslie Smith recording would alone be worth the miniscule price of admission, but this thing's got great songs by Geoff Bartley, Cosy Sheridan, Jonathan Byrd, Kate MacLeod, Annie Gallup, Lui Collins and other esteemed colleagues as well. Andrew is giving it away free with any CD ordered from his web site, or selling it for $5. You can hear "My Next Drink" streaming from my MySpace page.

Happy Hanukkah

2009-12-15T19:02:00.002-05:00

I managed to get this little video of "Sometimes A Little Light Can Be Enough" up on YouTube:

I actually got the words together two years ago and found a melody last year. Lost a little video recording I made at that point (somehow the file got corrupted), and was delighted to find this year that the melody had not deserted me (a good sign). The thing I love about this song at this point is that it has helped me re-connect with old friends. It's put together with love for my Jewish friends and family.

Stolen voices

2009-11-01T14:31:00.002-05:00

I had a strange "It's A Wonderful Life" kind of experience this morning. I visited a local church; it being the feast of All Saints, there was a baptism, in this case of infant twin girls. I was glad to see the joy in the faces of parents and godparents, and gratified that the supply priest (the rector having been suddenly taken ill) preached eloquently on baptism and the meaning of the event. I was a bit taken aback by his reading the bishops' request to tone down the passing of the peace to eliminate the possible sharing of pathogens during this flu outbreak. I noticed that some heeded this warning and some, including the children in the pew just ahead of me, didn't. I responded in kind.

I was a stranger in this church. That is a relatively unusual experience for me, and it was instructive. I began to feel like Jimmy Stewart's character George, who is shown in the movie what his town would be like had he not lived in it. My ritual greetings were acknowledged sincerely, and I could see genuine warmth and support between various members of the congregation, but never got the feeling that any of it extended to me.

The thing that shocked me, though, was that nobody in the congregation sang. I may have caught a few tentative voices, but that was it, and my voice, tentative as it tends to be in the morning, was still more noticeable than any of them, to the point that I caught some folks' attention just by raising it. The other thing that shocked me was, my own voice was for a moment the only "Amen" heard in response to the baptism.

It was as if the voices of the congregation had been stolen. To be sure, the church was of the old fashioned kind, lots of stone or brick and the layout one that discourages participation or intimacy. Row on row of straight pews; I was in the front half of the church and still felt far from the sanctuary.

The organist was competent for the most part; there were supplemental hymnals with very simple hymns in the pews. But the congregation just did not sing. Even the choir seemed intimidated by the space. I began to wonder who had stolen all their voices.

"American Idol" came to mind, and the inner Simon Cowell and his legions of allies in the music business that tell people that their own songs and their own voices don't cut it. I recalled my experience at Harbor Sweets listening to my co-workers talk about that show, co-workers who just wouldn't imagine going to the wonderful open mic at the Pig's Eye pub just a few blocks away. The best music in the world arises out of communities, but communities are continually told that the real music is the stuff that's packaged and sold to them. That's idolatry indeed, and it pained me to think that in some Christian churches, where, if anywhere, people should be aware that their own voices are the ones that God wants to hear, it's idolatry that has made great headway. I was among people who are struggling and broken in various degrees, as I am struggling and broken, but who, unlike me, do not understand what a wonderful tool for healing and restoration singing together can be.

I went downstairs to the coffee hour and stood next to a couple of pillars, feeling more and more like Jimmy Stewart's character caught in a strange world. I escaped to my car and went home.

When's the right time to leave?

2009-10-27T13:20:00.002-04:00

I prepared this note for publication in the newsletter of my local church. Sometimes it takes time to figure out what love requires; I'm not saying that I've got it right yet, but I'm doing my best.

Dear Friends,
I'm looking forward to performing anthems on November 22 and December 6, and to taking part in the Epiphany and Good Friday cantatas next year, but I need to share with you all that after after much thought and prayer, I've submitted my resignation as Artist in Residence to the vestry.

I've spent a long time now with the great honor of serving the parish in this capacity. While I once had a direct connection to children's and youth ministries, my child is now 29 and a grad student in Michigan. I'm also afraid that I'm no longer "in residence" in the same way I once was: I read about the various church activities at St. Andrew's and wish I could plug into them on a casual basis, but the combination of distance, the time I need to stay afloat financially, and the fact that Joan and I are also members of another faith community (even if I'm happily a black sheep in a Jewish context) indicate to me that I should be looking for a parish closer to where we actually live. If and when I find such a congenial community, I can tell you from my heart that I will nonetheless dearly miss worshiping with my friends at St. Andrew's.

I want to do the right thing by this parish that has supported me so generously and faithfully in my creative life. You have many fine musicians and visual artists, and should understand that you have a free hand in allocating limited resources to them as makes the most sense to you. I don't think at this point that my claiming an artist in residence title is helpful in that process. I've hung on to it in our transition period just to take on the unaccustomed responsibility of someone providing continuity in chaos, but that transition period is over now, and Susan and the new staff are doing a fine job as far as I can tell. I hope that one of the positive effects of my resigning will be a lively and loving discussion in the parish of the role of the arts in its life and its proclamation of the Gospel.

My life as an artist is doing as well as it ever has; I have been and will be writing and performing with some regularity. Both Joan and I will be hooking up with a nationally active booking agency next month, she as its east coast associate, and myself as an artist on its roster. If this works out, it looks like I will be spending more and more time out of town, and more time working with other churches as well.

My 30 year tenure as Artist in Residence at St. Andrew's is something I will include on my resume with a great deal of pride and gratitude. It still seems remarkable to me, and it's been a source of great blessing in my life. The support that many of you have personally given to me during all this time I also will never forget, especially Janet's constant support as Music Director, the wonderfully skillful and professional support Amy and the choir have given to the Passion cantata, the extremely thoughtful support the Liturgical Arts Committee has offered me over the years, and the deeply satisfying and grounding fun that I have had singing in the choir. This just seems to me to be a good time to mark an ending that will enable new beginnings for us all.
Your loving brother in Christ,
Bob Franke

A new song for church

2009-10-17T14:17:00.002-04:00

I'm debuting this one tomorrow.

Strange Kingdom

by Bob Franke

When James and John both asked for seats in heaven,

They must have thought that Heaven was like Rome,

We stumble here just like the first Eleven

and wonder as we travel to your home.

(chorus) It's a strange kingdom that you've left us in this world,

A love that's so much more than we deserve.

The journey to your glory leads us onward to your Cross,

Rejoicing as we suffer, and we serve.

We're baptized in your death and in your rising,

We've tasted of your cup, and of our tears,

The joy that fills our hearts is still surprising,

When we gather in your name we know you're here.

Though sorrow, sin and suffering still assail us,

Our daily bread is all the wealth we need,

Though princes fall, your love will never fail us,

And living in that love, we're blessed indeed.

Linda Waterfall's latest CD

2009-09-15T13:21:00.002-04:00

Some who read this may imagine my delight when Linda Waterfall's latest CD Welcome to the Dark arrived in my mailbox the other day. Whether or not you're among those, I'm happy to say that it lives up to the high standards that Linda has always embodied in her music. These 7 songs enlist stunning musical technique on guitar and piano and Linda's astonishingly gorgeous soprano in the service of human and divine intimacy. Bass (played by the wonderful Cary Black), hurdy-gurdy, and bouzouki support the title cut, which is about the kinds of spiritual growth and transformation that can happen in darkness. Other aspects of spiritual journey and daily relationship are explored with the same great-hearted lyricism and humor that have made many of us Linda Waterfall fans for life. These insights don't come from any Christian tradition, but they're evidence for my belief that, the closer you get to God, the less it matters how you got there.

The album doesn't have distribution outside of the Seattle area, so you have to commit to pen, paper, and Linda's order form to pick one up. Somebody's got to tutor Linda on how easy it is to get into digital distribution. And I have to say that 7 Linda Waterfall songs are not enough, but on the other hand, 12 Linda Waterfall songs are not enough, and 7 of them are worth 12 of most other folks' songs. You can get evidence of that by streaming a couple of them at Linda's MySpace page here. This $15 CD, which Linda will ship to you free, will open up your heart and invite repeated listening.

Joan's cancer walk

2009-05-19T17:12:00.002-04:00

Our neighbor Mike, a 39 year old man who adored his wife and twin infant girls, died of a heart attack last night. We visited his widow as she was surrounded by her family. Hard to know what to do when there's nothing you can do, but we showed up, expressed our sorrow and our willingness to be of support if needed.
Joan also signed up for a walk in support of cancer research, as part of a team from her temple, Temple Ner Tamid of Peabody. If you'd like to support her efforts, you're welcome to use this widget. Nothing much you can do in the face of death but pray, live each moment with awareness, and love 'till you've loved it away.

May 9 streaming concert w/ Buddy Mondlock

2009-05-05T15:10:00.002-04:00

I got a call recently from Don Porterfield, bass player, musician, impresario and now radio producer, who hired me a while back to do a split evening with Buddy Mondlock at the Sautee-Nacoochee arts center in the beautiful hills of north Georgia. It turns out that Georgia Public Radio will be streaming the concert--which from my perspective, was extremely enjoyable--on May 9 from 8-10 pm EDT at http://www.gpb.org . I myself will be hopefully having another enjoyable, if less collegial, evening in Orange, CA at St. Matt's After Dark, 1111 Town and Country Road. But if you can't make it to Orange, tune in your computer to the sound of two respectful singer-songwriters enjoying and playing off of one another.

Bob Franke sings My Lover's T-Shirts

2009-04-02T12:49:00.001-04:00

Just a little late for April Fool's day--a postmodern love song for modern lovers.

Making my way back

2009-03-21T15:02:00.005-04:00

Well, as Steve Gillette used to sing, I'm back on the street again, full-time in music, having been laid off from Harbor Sweets last November. In the interim, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has cleaned up their health insurance act a bit, so it's a strange situation: once more I can theoretically afford to follow my bliss without courting homelessness, but can I really? Hard to say. Joan has been doing a great job of putting my calendar together into the summer and fall. I'll be teaching once again this summer at Puget Sound Guitar Workshop and Summer Acoustic Music Week. John Schindler and I will be kicking off what I hope will be a new Thursday night concert series in Salem this May 21st. I'm looking forward to a Notlob Music show next week with my old friend Martin Grosswendt, and to again being with Martin, Sally Rogers, Howard Bursen, Sloan Wainwright, Chuck Hall, John Kirk and Trish Miller, Kate Seeger, Kim Wallach, Geoff Bartley, Ellen Groves, Paul Combs and Joshua Levin-Epstein on April 5 at St. Andrew's in Marblehead for my Passion cantata. The privilege of performing it in the midst of that community, with the choir of St. Andrew's, is nearly overwhelming to me.

In the interim, I find I'd gotten used to luxuries like paying all the bills on time. Then again, my sense is that many folks are kissing that luxury goodbye these days. I will continue to seek out ways of returning to my former amateur status (that being, by the way, a condition of the very helpful unemployment checks that come in from time to time). But meanwhile, I will remain thankful for not only Joan's support but also for the folks who hire me to sing my songs, and the folks who come out to hear them.

To Hear Your Banjo Play - 1947

2009-03-07T14:06:00.001-05:00

Martha Burns pointed out this link to a video of Pete from the year I was born.

The Hard Love Video

2008-11-09T14:53:00.003-05:00

I just realized that, despite the fact that I talked about it here first, this is one of the few places I haven't spread this video. Hereby the repair of the omission:

an echo of Willie Johnson

2008-11-09T13:59:00.008-05:00

Today's Gospel reading in many churches was Jesus' parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids; I took advantage of the opportunity in my capacity as artist in residence at St. Andrew's in Marblehead, MA to offer my attempt at Blind Willie Johnson's "Keep Your Lamp Trimmed And Burning." Here are the notes I offered to the congregation in this morning's program:

Blind Willie Johnson (1897-1945) was a street evangelist in Beaumont, TX who made 30 commercial studio recordings from 1927 to 1930. His remarkable slide guitar technique and his songs have had a significant impact on American music; his musical meditation on the Crucifixion, “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was The Ground” was included on the gold record carried by the Voyager spacecraft beyond the bonds of the solar system.

What strikes me about “Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning” is the intensity of Willie Johnson's encouraging witness. As much as I love our beautiful Anglican musical heritage, I love even more the Anglican view of the Church's catholic nature, which asserts that Willie Johnson and all of us here at St. Andrew's are members of the same Church, though we may be in different branches of it. My offering this morning is a faint echo of one of my musical heroes, and our brother in Christ.

According to Wikipedia, Johnson remained poor until the end of his life. In 1945, his home burned to the ground. With nowhere else to go, he lived in the burned ruins of his home, sleeping on a wet bed. He lived like this until he contracted pneumonia two weeks later, and died.

Unbeknownst to me, our choir had prepared an Andre Thomas choral arrangement of the same song for later in the service. The contrast was striking, and after the service, our choir director Amy LeClair told me that I had supplied the dirt in my arrangement that she had been unable to put into hers. I replied that Andre Thomas had pretty much laundered it out, but that both arrangements were African-American.

The truth is that Blind Willie Johnson and his contemporary colleagues in country blues have had an enormous impact on me throughout my career. Even when my music sounds nothing like theirs (which is true most of the time), I can't put together a song without being conscious of what these artists achieved with solo guitar and vocal under the most abject poverty and oppressive social conditions. They have been guardians in me against the arrogance and self-pity that are not unknown amongst singer-songwriters. That connection, and its importance in my life, are really what I was celebrating in God's presence this morning. It was a joyful noise.

A summer of hope and reassurance

2008-08-21T13:27:00.006-04:00

I write this from the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee at Summer Acoustic Music Week.
This week and Summersongs have been the highlights of the summer for me, as most of my time has been spent in more immediate efforts at survival. Teaching has given me the opportunity to be inspired by my students, by their dedication to learning new and powerful ways of expressing the truth of their lives. Watching their skills unfold has made for a wonderful two weeks.

I just had a talk with a friend and former student here about how the internet is changing and offering new ways of connecting with my audience. How video, for instance, is becoming an important part of the mix. I'd love to put up a simple video of Hard Love, for instance, so that astute young guitarists can get a sense of how I make the chords, and how it all goes together. I'm hoping to get this together before too long. Meanwhile, any day now, my first digital reissue will go up on iTunes, a reissue of The Desert Questions. Paul Bryan, Duke Levine, Dave Mattacks, Julie Dougherty and Ellen Groves made an album about hard times into one of my favorite of my own recordings, through their brilliant contributions.

The nice thing about iTunes is that you can download only the funny tunes (Acid Polka and Go Heal Somewhere Else), only the sad ones (Upper Room, for instance), or only the angry ones (say, This Blank Page or El Nino). Nice for folks on a budget. Each song becomes a potential "single".

In order to figure this out, of course, I had to get my own iPod and learn how easy the process is, and why CDs are becoming an ancillary form of music distribution. I didn't put my Nimbit store on my MySpace page until the folks at the Tamarack Institute in West Virginia told me that they'd hired me because they'd gone to that page and listened to the six songs I have streaming there. It takes a while to integrate this new information into action, but I'm working on it. I hope to make it much easier for those who came to my music through Ellen Wittlinger's wonderful book to discover that Hard Love is only one example of the many songs I've written that hold meaning for thoughtful people, and to give those thoughtful people who know me better more access to my work.

Avocation?

2007-10-16T21:55:00.000-04:00

I worked on a new song tonight--Joan had admonished me to practice for my gig this Saturday night at the Eighth Step's 40th anniversary show in Schenectady. The song showed up in the middle of the night one night in the lovely notebook my daughter had given me for my birthday. So I decided to take the song one step closer to reality by picking a key and testing out the tune. The act of singing and playing the guitar has changed the song, as it usually does, and lucky for me, I like it better as it matures. I was looking for a key, an arrangement, and a sense of lightness, and as I explored my friend Bennett Hammond's remark that the 12-string guitar is a treble instrument, I found them. The melody evolved a bit to accommodate my limitations, but then, the song in part is about limitations.

Joan was off at an art class she's been taking--she's really quite talented with pencils and charcoal, and exploring this talent for the first time in her life. I took advantage of the solitude. As my touring schedule contracts, I have less of the solitude that seems so necessary for my songwriting. It was kind of her to remind me of the opportunity.

Being a business person has been a necessary evil to me, necessary to my music. Being a mechanic has a Ghandian sense of right livelihood to it, but it sure takes up a lot of energy. I was tired at the end of the workday today.

I suspect the idea that my music is an avocation says a lot more about Bush's America than it says about me.

One day at a time. Today was a good one.

My own patron

2006-11-06T20:49:00.000-05:00

Being a singer-songwriter as a business can get seasonal, and September was not a great month for business. So when I got a call from an old friend at Harbor Sweets in Salem, MA, saying that they needed some help getting the antique Rose-Forgrove candy wrapping machines in shape, I went in for a chat and came out with a job. They're paying me a tech-level salary and half of our health insurance. Part of the deal was a guarantee of the same kind of flexibility that got me onto the folk music circuit in the first place, and in fact, I've just started a new round of gigs in New England, with upcoming January tours in Minnesota and California. It turns out that candymaking is also a seasonal business, with a busy season from September to February 14; my ability to travel, and to teach in the summer, will be substantially unimpeded.

Processing this emotionally happens day to day. I was clear from the beginning what a blessing this job is in terms of taking financial pressure off me and Joan, which is why I took the opportunity with no hesitation. As Joan points out, if health insurance weren't going up 30% a year, we'd be doing fine. I've managed full-time in music for the past 17 years. At the same time, though, I am clear that I've always had patrons: my parents and extended family, the town of Salem, the people of Boston, the folks at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Marblehead, the Marblehead Eco-Farm, Saint Bart's in Manhattan, the ODC Dance Company of San Francisco, and countless coffeehouse concert series have enabled me to find and connect with my audience and keep myself and my family alive and healthy. My former wife was a crucial partner in raising my daughter while enabling me to remain an artist, and my wife Joan is no less crucial a partner now that my daughter is a young woman on her own.

For years I've told my songwriting students that it's a thin line between amateur and professional, a line mostly emphasized by insecure professionals. I've also told them that I hope to die an amateur, in the root sense of the word, one who does something out of love. My vocation is still my vocation: I've never done music as a hobby, but as a calling. At the same time, I have to admit to a certain sense of failure and disappointment. Some days I feel like demanding an apology from the culture; other days I wonder if I should be offering one myself.

I know, too, that sometimes there's a difference between what people want to hear and what they need to hear, and that my calling involves paying a lot of attention to the "need to hear" side. Churchy types call these the pastoral and the prophetic dimensions of a ministry. What my gut and my life experience tell me is right, for instance, is severely out of whack with George W. Bush's regime. I imagine that may put a cap on the kind of numbers I can expect at a show.

I'm still my own artist now that I'm my own patron. I never expected too much of the music industry, so it's no big surprise. I'm still writing, and looking forward to developing new songs for the shows. One day at a time. I'm always grateful for the support of my audience.

My pre-dinner with Chuck, part two

2006-07-19T15:33:00.000-04:00

Chuck Hall has posted the second part of our long conversation as a podcast from his web site. Part two focuses on songwriting practice and philosophy--if any of what I've written here has struck a chord, I recommend going over to Chuck's site, clicking on the podcast link, and having a listen.

Images from New Bedford

2006-07-19T15:21:00.000-04:00

Denn Santoro took many photos at New Bedford Summerfest, including this one of Anne Hills and myself. You can see them at his gallery site here. It's always one of my favorite festivals of which to be a part, and Joan and I had a truly great time.

Community Software for Community Musicians update

2006-07-06T15:13:00.000-04:00

My old Mepis machine having bit the dust (not a Mepis thing, more a Compaq hardware thing), I think it only fair to update my Linux situation. I'm currently running Ubuntu Dapper Drake on my low-end Dell. Its predecessor, Ubuntu Breezy Badger, was the easiest Linux install I've ever done; from there, I just upgraded via the simple instructions.

Meanwhile, being desirous of a working lightweight laptop and unwilling to pay for a new one, I rehabilitated my old HP Omnibook 800CT with Damn Small Linux. No USB ports or working CD-ROM on this thing, but by means of its old docking station I installed an entire Linux distribution to the hard drive via a 256MB USB thumb drive. This means that I have a tiny laptop with a 10" display with which I can do email and web browsing securely via wireless or ethernet (for both of which I had PC cards lying around). All my web radio streams are set up on this machine for use in any wireless situation as well. In my humble opinion, this is by far the best use one can make of a Pentium 166 MMX machine with 48MB of memory and a 2GB hard drive. When I'm home, it sits atop my stereo hooked up to its auxiliary input, serving web streams, my favorite new discoveries being Hober Internet Radio and The Internet Archive.

All this comes more or less free with your broadband connection, which is quite possibly insanely cheap (Verizon is selling DSL for about $15/mo in the Boston area at this point). All the help you need to put it together is on the web. You don't need a new machine to run Windows Vista. You don't even need a Mac (although you can run Linux on an old one). Buy an instrument instead--or, more realistically, pay off those energy bills...

My pre-dinner with Chuck

2006-07-03T14:46:00.000-04:00

My pal Chuck Hall used to make his living as a DJ at WUMB-FM in Boston; the other day he, as he puts it, dusted off his radio chops and invited me over for recorded conversation to be distributed over the web as a podcast. Maybe it was because Chuck and I have known each other for so long, maybe it was because of his radio chops and the thoughtful questions he asked, but the time flew by, so much of it that he's decided to release the conversation in two segments. Part one is up on the web as I type this. If you've ever wanted to get to know me better, or to be a fly on the wall as folksingers talk about personal history, go to http://www.hallfolk.com and click on the "podcast" button. With any luck, a nifty little flash player will come up and you'll have the opportunity to listen in. It ain't being on 60 Minutes with Barbara Walters, but I think Chuck did a better job with me than she would have done. It's nice to live in a world where I don't have to wait for Barbara's call to tell my story. Happy Independence Day to all.

Black Hills Songwriters

2006-06-16T21:41:00.000-04:00

I just finished a week in the Black Hills of South Dakota working with a wonderful, small community of songwriters and my esteemed and dear colleague Cosy Sheridan . Being one of two faculty at a weeklong camp was pretty intense, but the level of talent I encountered here was matched by the level of compassion, and every bit of energy I put out was returned tenfold. Ken and Cory Tomovick were exquisite hosts; some of the participants commuted, and some stayed at the Tomovicks' family compound. Mornings were dedicated to songwriting, afternoons to performance, with a guitar workshop toward the end of the week. Thanks to Ken and Cory, and the entire group, for a welcoming home away from home in which both Cosy and I were enabled to be the best mentors we could be.

We're dry in Peabody

2006-05-18T11:48:00.000-04:00

Many thanks to all who have been following the Northeast flood news and expressing concern. Except for a little leaking in the garage, we're dry and well. Getting around and avoiding the kind of puddles that sweep your car downstream has been hairy at times, but we're still at least 6 feet above the water table of our pond, and, since we have no basement, that's no problem.

Promised Land

2006-04-15T08:33:00.000-04:00

We completed the third and final performance this year of my Meditations on the Passion last night. Last Sunday, cast, choir and band were guests of St. Bartholomew's church in New York City, where we performed the cantata at St. Bart's regular evening service, with Jack Hardy taking the role that Larry Young took last night, and Chuck Hall taking the role that Geoff Bartley sang last night. The Good Friday cast is listed in the program, available in .pdf form by clicking on the title of this article. The program also contains the full libretto. The cantata has been performed nearly every year since 1980 at St. Andrew's Church in Marblehead, Massachusetts.

As I am every year, I am overwhelmed and drained this morning. As people familiar with my work already know, there are times when, as hesitant as I am to pretend that my beliefs are identical with those of my audience, religious language seems to me to be the most accurate and in fact the only appropriate language to describe my experience. This week has been full of undeserved grace. In the midst of one of the most stressful periods of my life, I have been showered with love in a tangible way available, I imagine, to few people in this life. Or maybe it's available to many of us, and the grace comes in being opened to it.

I am reminded of what my friend, the multi-talented Martin Grosswendt (brilliant last night, as usual) said at the end of Summer Acoustic Music Week last summer. It went something like this: this place is where I am who I'm supposed to be, doing what I'm supposed to be doing, and recognized and valued for it.

That's how I felt last night. It's the Promised Land, the Commonwealth of Heaven. We are allowed glimpses of this country so seldom in this world. But I saw it last night. I know it exists. And I hope that every human being can catch enough glimpses of it that someday we can all dwell there, each developed to their full potential, and each valued and beloved.

Having become a full-time singer-songwriter, I've actually risked a lot in my life. Here's a hint: when I'm not a full-time singer-songwriter, I'm unemployed without benefits. The world today is a far cry from the world I hoped for when I started doing this, or even from the hopeful, battered postwar world in which I was raised. But once again this year, three entire communities (St. Bart's, St. Andrew's, and my beloved musical colleagues) came together and laid themselves (and in some cases, their money) on the line so that I could be where I'm supposed to be, doing what I'm supposed to be doing, at my full potential, valued and beloved. In the midst of a fair amount of anxiety and even despair, I was given a home in the Promised Land, and have been reminded that the risks have been worth taking.

My neighbors

2006-03-13T08:50:00.000-05:00

Who in their right mind would live in the Boston area? Unpredictable weather, healthcare and housing prices through the roof, decades of driver training neglect turning into chaos in the streets--doesn't seem artist-friendly, does it?

But then, there's our history and what it's given us. And I'm not talking about Paul Revere here--I'm talking about a number of individual decisions by song-obsessed individuals that have helped enable any resident or any visitor here to find good grassroots music within driving distance nearly any night of the week. I'm talking about a community--not the Communion of Saints, perhaps, but what I believe to be a community nonetheless. I'm talking about some great musicians and some great singer-songwriters, and the institutions they have helped form to enable them to continue to work their craft even though some of us are hanging on by the skin of our teeth in these troubled funding-starved times. I'm talking about my neighbors:

Chuck Hall of Rowley, MA writes songs that have made their way across North America by virtue of the fact that they tell interesting stories reflecting a deep spirituality and positive human values. Chuck is a former WUMB disk jockey and a net-savvy guy who is starting a new podcast and stream of his songs and others'. His wife Mary Hall is living proof that some of the smartest human beings on the planet speak with thick Boston accents.

Geoff Bartley (of Framingham, MA) and I met one another when we were a children's theater orchestra over 30 years ago. These days he mostly hosts open mics at the Cantab Lounge in Cambridge. Cambridge Mayor Michael A. Sullivan proclaimed February 13, 2004 Geoff Bartley Day in honor of his contributions to the musical life of the city. In addition to fostering music at the Cantab, Geoff accompanies Tom Paxton regularly (I wish Tom lived closer by). What too often gets overlooked about Geoff is that he's one of the finest singer-songwriter/guitarist/rack harp players in America. You may have heard others sing "Cut by Wire" or songs he's co-written with John Gorka. As a friend of 30 years, I can attest also that he's got a heart of gold.

Lorraine and Bennett Hammond of Brookline, MA are an accomplished string duo on guitar, dulcimer, banjo, harp and mandolin, and the kind of songwriters who sneak up on you--they're so knowledgeable and involved in traditional music that sometimes you forget that they've written many of the songs they sing. They're also tireless music educators, and like myself, proud and happy to be associated with WUMB's Summer Acoustic Music Week.

Rick Lee, who lives in Natick, MA, is another world-travelled artist with impeccable credentials in traditional music who takes what he learns there and uses it to make great songs. He's also a great picker of contemporary songs anywhere from British folk to contemporary country.

Mel Green of Gloucester, MA had the closest relationship to stardom of any of my neighbors. He was a Columbia recording artist in South Africa in the days of the "folk boom". A gentle and charming guy, what he learned in those days he still brings with him on stage.

David Fishken and Ellen "Buffie" Groves have put together a duo representing the core values of traditional music combined with the kind of entertainment chops you might expect from someone (Buffie) with an extensive background in theater. Fishken's the one with the wisecracks and the devotion to Woody Guthrie, Buffie's the one with the musical sophistication. Together they make a fun evening with deep roots. Westford and Bedford, MA, respectively.

Dave Mattacks, currently residing in Marblehead, MA, is my candidate for best drummer in the world. He's been drumming to the lyrics for more years than I'm sure he wants me to remind you. Those lyrics were written and sung by the likes of Richard Thompson, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Fairport Convention, and Steeleye Span, to name a few. Dave is living proof that everybody's local somewhere.

Moving to the far suburbs (an hour of clear highway around here is roughly equivalent to 20 miles at rush hour), John Schindler and his bride (name withheld) live way up in Jaffrey, NH, but John plays out down here often enough to seem like a near neighbor. John's the best singer songwriter I've run into in the last 10 years or so. He's kept his day job, though, so you non-New England folks can't hear his elegant and funny live shows unless you come here as tourists.

Ray Chesna finds himself in Manchester, NH these days, but spent enough of his days around Atlanta to derive a deep knowledge of the blues. Ray's the kind of songwriter who's shy about calling himself a songwriter because of all of the bad songwriters out there. He's an old bandmate of Bela Fleck. Opened for the Rolling Stones once, I believe. Cool guy.

You'll just have to Google Martin Grosswendt (master of non-promotion) of Providence, RI to get the full story, but what a story you'll get. Martin was a prodigy accompanist for Utah Phillips and Rosalie Sorrels in the old days, and put together a singer-songwriter album on the Philo label that is still prized and sought-after. He got a degree in semiotics and a graduate degree in law; by the time he passed the bar he realized that all he wanted to be was a musician. He plays everything and anything, with current concentrations (and a new CD) in country blues, and lots of Cajun music activity with the Rhode Island band Magnolia. He's also a music educator with banjo and old-timey camps in the Boston area.

I guess my point is, with friends and neighbors like these, who needs a music industry? I'm running out of time, or I'd list more. I bet you've got a few such neighbors yourself, and you're welcome to post a comment on them on this blog.

A good nightmare

2005-12-19T07:19:00.000-05:00

The most amazing and productive anxiety dream woke me up this morning. It's perhaps a measure of my hard-won maturity that the dream was both anxious and productive. I've talked about some of my best songs coming out of dreams--this dream had a similar impact, but compelled me to write this entry instead of a song.
I've had many a folk festival anxiety dream--around twenty years ago I had one that turned into a song of mine called "Wheel of fortune". Last night's was my first music conference dream. It started out conventionally enough, with my usual difficulty getting to the stage. This one had the added element of my showcase slot at the Folk Alliance conference being scheduled for 9am, a guarantee that no one would show up.
Two younger songwriters in succession at this conference gave me their CDs, again, not unusual in real life, but a new element in my dreams. They both did something odd: before they gave me their CDs, they flashed a credit card. It wasn't until I saw the second credit card that I realized that they were offering to pay for my attention.

I entered a songwriting competition a few weeks ago, my first. Because I like to go through the web, I did it through a complimentary temporary membership in an organization that offers space and help for electronic press kits. Okay, cool idea--I put one together. Kind of like my web site, but a little more streamlined, and easy to do. A legitimate service. But then, on a daily basis, I was solicited to pay for various "opportunities", some of them song competitions such as I entered. Others, industry conferences. And into this mix started to come folk festivals, one I had played at, another I hope to participate in at some point. I was being solicited to flash my credit card to pay for someone's attention. At the end of the solicitation was some sentence like, "some compensation may be given".
Now, people do pay for my attention when they enroll in my classes and workshops. Because teaching is hard work, and that kind of attention takes energy, I am happy to get paid, and in fact I am grateful for my students' support. But I am careful to keep the focus on the creative process, and part of this is to never organize the class around pre-existing work. People understandibly get attached to their creations, whatever quality they might be, and it's much easier to do productive growth with work in process. I'm also careful to work only in groups, so whatever criticism I might give, the group gives a reality check to both the songwriter and me.

If someone offered me money, though, to listen to their CD, I would be shocked, as I hope they would be shocked. I'm not even convinced I did the right thing entering that contest. I think the "daily opportunity" part of the online service I used is like someone peddling candy or dope to kids. You may get a boost, but it's not the same kind of nourishment that real food gives for the long run. For that, you need to go out into a real community again and again, and test your songs until it becomes obvious to one and all that your songs offer an audience more than they expect of it--that the energy an audience gives with its attention is rewarded with more energy from the song and its performance.

And paying to audition gives away too much power to gatekeepers, undermining the kind of community in which the cream, instead of the money, rises to the top.

I refer any developing songwriter looking for my criticism to the wonderful advice of Rainer Maria Rilke in the first of his "Letters to a Young Poet". I can't do better. On the other hand, if you want to do a workshop or a class with me, get in touch.

The last collaborators

2005-12-01T23:02:00.000-05:00

Well, it's been about a month since my last post, and the song I was struggling with is still in process, but much closer to completion. I've actually sung it to Joan and to a few friends, which for me is by no means the end of the process. I may give it a shot in front of an audience next Saturday here in St. Paul, where I am meanwhile visiting with my sister and brother-in-law, and with my mother.

The song tells you how it wants to be finished, but only when you sing it. Inviting the audience into the collaboration--that is, singing it for them and trying to gauge their reaction, trying to find out if you've really communicated what you wish to communicate--should only be done in a context of respect. This particular song is an angry one, and I'll only bring it out if I've established an obvious trust with folks. I did this at old friends Lorraine and Bennet Hammond's home at Thanksgiving, and got some very good and informative feedback, which I intend to use somehow to make the song more effective. I didn't do it yesterday in performance in St. Cloud because we didn't have the critical mass in attendance to establish that trust, to allow each person in the audience the privacy of an un-moderated reaction. So much depends upon the moment, and the weather and the closing of the interstate kept a few folks home. In such situations, I have to let go of any hope of the audience serving me in this fashion, and concentrate on my serving them--reassuring them by a good, respectful and loving show that they made the right choice in coming out in the storm. Sing a new angry song might convey to some an anger at the size of the house, when the thing I need to communicate at that point is my gratitude at the opportunity of performing for them. These things at my shows are negotiated, which is why I do a better job when there's enough light in the house for me to see people's reactions, but not so much that they feel self-conscious about them.

I've said this to many a songwriting class, and it's appropriate to say it here: when I write a song, I am searching for something that I share with the audience. I am trying to articulate in song an experience or feeling that we share, and thereby serve the audience with something that helps them articulate their own experience or feeling. My shows aren't about being angry, but they are about being human, and anger is a part of that. My hope is that, putting an angry song in the context of a good show helps an audience put their own anger in the context of a good life. My hope is that, the better we artists do that job, the fewer people in this sometimes appalling pre-manufactured culture reach for guns. I'm an entertainer--but I hope to be a deeply entertaining entertainer, that is, an artist.

Midnight process

2005-10-21T15:16:00.000-04:00

I started a new song last night, my first since "Day of the Dead". It may turn into something, and I think it will be fun to sing. I owe it to my audience. But this process never gets easier.

RIP Hamilton Camp

2005-10-09T18:20:00.000-04:00

Hamilton Camp, actor, singer and songwriter, has passed on at age 70. One of my early trips to the Kerrville Folk Festival found me sitting in the audience while Mr. Camp did a set from the main stage. He was an inspiration. Instead of resting on his laurels and doing a nostalgia set (during the early sixties he and his partner Bob Gibson were one of the hottest tickets of the folk boom in Chicago) he was taking chances right and left in a fascinating and compelling set, and singing songs that said things that needed to be said. I hope, like him, to be an artist to the end of my life.

"Pop and Protest"

2005-09-28T23:00:00.000-04:00

I watched the PBS program about protest in popular music this evening. It was good to see Chuck D put rap in a historical perspective. It was good that it wasn't a show about white people's music. But watching two hours about protest music on TV didn't do as much for me as hearing a single Phil Ochs song, and Phil wasn't mentioned once on the show. I am reminded of something I wrote to a Boston Globe reporter who had written an article lamenting the "lack of protest songs about the Iraq war." She was looking in the wrong place. Looking for protest music in the corporate industry makes as much sense as it would have made to look for protest writing in the Soviet era among members of the Soviet Writers' Union.

I believe that this is not a fascist country in its heart or its institutions. But it is being run by a fascist regime at the moment. Look up the definition in the dictionary. That's the elephant in the living room, folks. That's the bit of evidence that stuns me into silence, that leads me to being paranoid about one out of every two people I run into, the one who might have voted for W. You can hear this news on the street, but you won't see it on the TV, not even PBS, the poor bastards.

Whipped cream and jello

2005-09-27T14:44:00.000-04:00

I just had a very funny dream, the meaning of which is slowly revealing itself to me (and may partially reveal itself to you by the time I finish this post). In my dream, the curvature of the earth, which no one had quite noticed in this way before owing to the wide use of the Mercator projection (you may remember those rectangular maps of the world that made Greenland look much larger than it is), revealed that Texas was actually quite close to Northern Italy, in fact only a short drive away. Rod Kennedy, the founder of the Kerrville Folk Festival (whom I regard with a great deal of respect, affection, and gratitude, while recognizing that for various reasons these attitudes toward Rod may not be universal), has retired from the festival. In my dream, in my short drive from Texas to the mountains of northern Italy, I discovered that Rod had opened a small, elegantly appointed bistro there surrounded by glass walls, which was the center of a small community of transplanted Texans and was also a Methodist mission. I was treated to a sumptuous meal there, the only details of which I remember were the drinks, served, Freudians may note, in three narrow cylindrical glasses: a glass of red wine, a cappucino drink, and a dessert somewhat magically topped with three very large, Texas sized, red, yellow and green cubes of jello stacked one on top of another, like a very sweet traffic light.

Now, those who know me know that my own Christianity was transformed by an Episcopal coffeehouse ministry in Ann Arbor during my college years. What fascinates me about this dream are its contrasts of ascetic and sensual images, and its insistence on their closeness to one another. I'm also fascinated by the three drinks, each, I am sure, with its own meaning, and working together. Alertness, sensuality and conviviality, and the sweetness coming from an icon of regulation.

One of the many things I am discovering about Judaism being married to Joan is that there is a tradition of eating sweets during Torah study, to emphasize the sweetness of the study itself. The commandments, the mitzvot, give sweetness and purpose to life, even as the study of them is sweet in itself. In Greek mythology, the marriage of Zeus and Hera continually worked out the tension between unbridled divine sexual/creative energy and the need for interpersonal justice in family and home.

My dream was an art dream, I'm pretty sure. Artists need awareness and alertness, they need to experience sensuality and love, and they need enough stability in their lives to do their jobs, and to recognize the sweetness as well as the fragility of that stability (I think the giant cubes of jello may have been mortared with whipped cream). In fact, we all live within a tension of opposites; artists commit themselves to being aware of this tension, and we see it as beautiful.

In college I learned that poetry is more exact than everyday literal speech, not less. Musicians understand that pitch itself is not defined by the keys of the piano; every time you hear two notes trilled on a blues piano, they're searching for something in between that the human voice and players of other instruments that imitate the human voice know instinctively. Poets speak in the cracks between the keys. There are indeed Christian, and Jewish, and Muslim artists, but I doubt seriously whether there are fundamentalist artists of any faith worth spending time with.

In praise of silence

2005-09-07T22:01:00.000-04:00

I listen to crickets and tree frogs outside my window, having just experienced putting together and listening to my first "mix tape" on my PDA. It's nothing new in the imagination of humanity, but it's been tremendously reassuring to me to choose only my favorite songs from my favorite albums, not giving it a lot of thought, but choosing from the already chosen, albums I've put on my hard drive because I love them and want them handy. I've always resisted mind exercises like "what albums would you rescue if you were stranded on a desert island". For me it would be impossible to make choices like that on the spot. But "what songs would you transfer to a limited mp3 player from your hard drive" is just the gentle exercise of an evening. Here's what I came up with; keep in mind that a few Linda Waterfall songs are probably on their way to the chip:

Good Enough - Lynne Saner
After the Rain, Put It In Your Heart -Bruce Cockburn
Beat the Retreat, Dimming of the Day, A Heart Needs A Home - Richard Thompson
Help, We Can Work It Out, I'm Down - The Beatles
Freddy the Freeloader, Kind of Blue, So What? --Miles Davis
Northern Sky - Nick Drake
I Ain't Blue - Spider John Koerner
Step by Step, Stardust Ballroom, Solo - John Schindler

These may not be the greatest songs of all time--that's not the issue--but they are ones that I've kept handy after filing the others away. Listening to them again, I'm reassured that artists with whom I've shared space and time on this earth really have put some of the meaning and/or energy of our lives into words and music (and now digital bits). These are songs I can listen to again and again, for different reasons, because each in its own way is rich in meaning.

We're not that different from other generations, whose own songs and music have given them comfort. In fact, we're not that different from the crickets and the tree frogs, whose sounds have their own beauty. And none of it possible without the silence they all have in common: none of the notes possible without rests.

Puget Sound Guitar Workshop

2005-08-03T18:39:00.000-04:00

I've been having such a great time teaching here at the Puget Sound Guitar Workshop. People around here have been fine-tuning a community of support designed to increase musical skills and at the same time open hearts for more than 25 years. It might be possible to come here and be alienated, but you have to work hard at it. This particular week for me personally has been full of old friends and former students. I like to think I'm a more generous and wiser person now than when I first started teaching here about 15 or so years ago, largely because of the experiences I've had here. For a number of years it seemed as if I would learn an important lesson about myself, and then either just before or just after, I'd pick up the explanatory manual of the personality growth in some bookstore.

I miss Joan Sherman this week, and I don't care who knows that. But it occurs to me that when I want to remind myself of the love of God and try to open myself to it, I go to church. When the love of God wants to encounter me directly, it quite often sends me to the Puget Sound Guitar Workshop.

Material world

2005-06-29T13:39:00.000-04:00

The new CD is out (it's available here), and we sold a bunch of them at the Old Songs Festival last weekend. The character of this job of mine changes from season to season, but every now and then the earthliness of it impresses me. Much of the time it seems that it's not so much about singing or playing or even writing. For one thing, it's about driving (see a previous post). When you put together a concert series in a local venue, it's about moving chairs and writing a convincing press release. Last week and the beginning of this one around the house, it's been about using a paper cutter.

I seldom do paper mailings these days--they're really expensive, and yes, a bit wasteful--but when I do, it reminds me of the old days when I used to take on temporary jobs like running a decollater. A decollater is a machine that tears apart those old multi-part computer forms that still show up in business from time to time, the ones with the holes on the side that are fed through sprockets. The different parts go to different departments. We don't have different departments around the house, but when I do a paper mailing I have to ride herd on an old computer of mine that does nothing much except put out postcards when there's call for it. Four postcards fit on a sheet of card stock. You put the content on one side and the addresses on the other, nicely formatted. When the printer starts you have to keep an eye on it to make sure the ink hasn't run out. You take the finished sheets into the living room and cut them on a paper cutter while you're watching TV. If you're lucky, Joan puts the stamps on.

There's a real sense of, well, relief in all this. When I do it, I think of Gandhi spinning his own clothes. One of the reasons I still do this is that I believe that it's right livelihood for me. I try to minimize both the environmental and the financial damage. People seem to respond well to getting the news in a non-electronic form. And doing it by hand, myself or with Joan, gives me the sense that any damage I do is at least on a human scale. The hope is that any good that I may do will accelerate itself enough to cover the damage. But there's comfort in dealing with the material stuff that enables the spiritual.

Evil, good, and American idols

2005-06-09T09:36:00.000-04:00

I was waiting in line with Joan at the supermarket the other day looking at the tabloids when I noticed that the new "American Idol" winner is virtually indistinguishable in appearance from Britney Spears. My guess is that that's why she won the contest. The music industry no longer markets music, let alone songs. It markets images.

Nothing wrong with that, I suppose, except that the images pretend to be artists. The industry calls them artists. That's evil. John Sandford is a Jungian therapist who has written extensively, and who wrote a whole book about evil. His definition of evil has been terrifically useful to me: evil is a part pretending to be the whole.

An idol in the Biblical sense is a statue pretending to be a god. In this culture, corporations are organizations put together for the sole purpose of human acquisitiveness aspiring to the status of human beings. When the Supreme Court ruled that corporations have the same rights as human beings, it was one of the biggest mistakes this country ever made. In this culture, an idol is an image pretending to be an artist.

Human beings create culture. Corporations can only create a distorted version of it based on greed. That's why the best music in this country comes from communities rather than corporations. Historically, corporations have taken the best artists out of communities and enhanced their images, if you will, to call attention to them. This has put artists in a quandary: we all have material needs. But we need to be artists. Corporations, on the other hand, need profits, and to gain profits, they need stars. They need idols.

Partly through the collusion of corrupted artists, people who are seduced into serving the corporations rather than their audiences, the corporations have figured out a way of bypassing art and culture altogether. Just put together a contest based upon what a corporation needs rather than what human beings need. Take the winner and spend millions upon the lie that the winner is an artist, and a good one. Watch the money roll in from the pockets of people too young and/or too dumb to recognize what a real culture is and what a real artist does. An adolescent in love with an image is an important part of the human story. But when a corporation substitutes that part for the whole culture, it's evil.

From my point of view, the harm comes when real artists can't find an audience and/or make a living, say, comparable to that of a firefighter, or even a teacher, because so many people have been distracted and their money sucked away by the corporations. There are consequences for audiences as well. Without a culture based in truth and true imagination, people are more apt to be fooled when politicians start telling them lies. Even the more intelligent among them are more apt to dismiss the entire notion of the truth being sung, and turn to music in other languages, because there, at least, there is some energy, and one doesn't have to waste one's time listening to lame lyrics.

Have you noticed that whenever there is a true revival of great songwriting in the U.S. the industry begins to flood the market with bad songwriters? Imitations pretending to be the real thing. The part pretending to be the whole.

Artists need to keep fighting to remain artists, whether they are on the margins, or among the "lucky" few making compromises with the industry. Artists whose numbers and images are inflated by the industry need to work hard to stay artists, and need to know only enough business to know when they are being seduced. And any businessperson in the music industry with integrity and a concern for truth in culture needs to commit to working with artists rather than idols.

Those of us artists on the margins just need to tell the truth as well and as lovingly as we can to as many folks as we can reach. The pay isn't always great, but it's good work.

Walking with birders

2005-06-05T19:02:00.000-04:00

I've been on the road a lot for a guy who hasn't left Massachusetts in the last three weeks, making multiple trips to Nimbit in Framingham to get the new CD in shape, having a great time last night in Pittsfield doing a show with Sally Rogers, and actually relaxing (well, more like exercising my body into a relaxed state) with Joan on a birding trip with the Hale Bird Club (and no, the club didn't come up in Google, or I'd post the link).

It was my first weekend with the club, although not my first trip--I'd gone climbing up Mt. Wachusett with them months ago without really realizing what was happening. But Joan's birthday was close to the Memorial Day weekend, and, knowing that there are no mountains on Cape Cod, I signed on to spend the weekend there with her and her club. I'm glad I did. Not only did the weather turn out to be fine, but the birders themselves turned out to be an intelligent and a fun bunch of people. They were very welcoming to me, and were also patient with me when I asked the obvious question or spotted the obvious bird.

I guess I think of birding as God's video game. When someone in the group spots and identifies a bird, no matter how helpful they try to be, you usually have only a few seconds to find the bird in your glasses, which is an acquired skill, for me a slowly acquired skill. Training yourself to recognize patterns in trees well enough to shift from watching with the naked eye to using binoculars is not easy. And that's just the beginning. Real birders also train themselves to identify birds visually from memory or from a field guide, and audibly from their calls. This is all second nature to Joan at this point, and these are just some of the many skills she has which I envy (don't even talk to me about Joan's gaming abilities).

What the trip did for me was to show me a vision of the world which is not centered on humanity, and to remind me that such a vision can be humbling in the best of ways. We share earth and air with birds and we are interdependent, sometimes tragically so from the bird's point of view. Like all living things we share certain issues. But some things that are important to us (road signs, money) are of no importance to birds. And some things that are crucial to birds (like seasons) are things with which humans, especially urban humans, are losing touch.

It's a good thing to be drawn out of one's own concerns from time to time by a sort of disciplined noticing. Artists do it. So do people with a certain kind of compassion. Birders do it, too.

Community software for community music

2005-05-11T07:55:00.000-04:00

I'm headed to Framingham this morning to consult with a mastering engineer about my new live CD. The foremost question on both of our minds will be whether I need his help; I've already done many of the tasks that a mastering engineer traditionally does to a recording: I've edited it extensively, laid out and sequenced tracks, added pregaps to some of the tracks, and added compression. I've done this, moreover, using an old Compaq desktop computer with an AMD 500 Mhz K6-2 processor and less memory than the typical new computer (192 MB).

I've gratefully sent along $10 to one of the people who made this possible, but I wasn't required to. I was happy to do it because I was blown away by the job he'd done in turning my old nearly-junk computer into a credible editing station, as well as a wirelessly-connected workstation for safe email, web browsing, streaming net radio, writing a good-looking business letter, and putting this blog together. If I bought a headset I could use it as an Internet telephone as well.

I checked this software out without risk to my data or hard disk by setting the computer to boot from CD, and then running the computer entirely from the CD. What sold me finally was that the software recognized and set up my wireless connection. When I decided to install it on the hard disk, reserving a portion of the disk for the few old Windows '98 programs that I needed, the software needed to partition the hard disk was right on the CD. (Always back up your data, okay?). The installation went without a hitch.

It's not that I never needed help, but community help was always there on the web. I never had to pay for it (although a person running a company on this software could contract for support). Having a properly set up (included) firewall, I don't worry about viruses on this computer any more. I don't have to reboot it all the time.

The software is Gnu-Linux free software, the particular distribution package is Simply Mepis. The sound editing (and recording) program is Audacity.

If you've got a high speed Internet connection (and if you're a musician, you must take that step soon if you haven't already), you owe it to yourself to check out this stuff before you buy your next PC, or even your next Mac. You might be able to save the money for a new guitar.

Things done and left undone

2005-04-29T14:39:00.000-04:00

I recently received a new CD from an old friend and former student, Oakland, CA-based Patrice Haan, and I played it this morning, all by itself. I expected to be delighted, but I didn't expect to weep. Patrice is a fabulous harper and a songwriter who puts her heart on the line and tells the truth. "The Year I Turned 14", which Patrice composed in my class in 1996, is every bit as heartbreaking as I remembered it. Perhaps it's presumptuous to say this about a mature artist who would have gotten that way without my help, but I'm very proud of her.

I usually don't say too much about the accomplishments of my former students except when I have the sense that (to paraphrase the Bible), if I didn't say anything, the stones would cry out. Part of this is self-protection. I'm afraid that I get more CDs in the mail than I will wind up listening to, although I have enough guilt about this that every six months or so I will put five at a time on the CD carousel and see if anything leaps out at me. Don't get me wrong: every voice is unique, and I cherish every student I've ever had. Each has had something important to say, and some have said it very, very well. But it's a rare student who gets past my analytical faculties and grabs me by the heart with his or her work. Patrice is one. John Schindler is another, but I've already praised John's work in a number of web venues. Ditto Wanda Lu Paxton . I've talked a lot to friends about my favorite unreleased CD by Lynne Saner (and I wish I could link to a site of hers). I wish I had said something in a timely fashion about Heather Klinger's first CD; she's an amazing songwriter.

The intelligence and courage that most of my students bring to their work give me a standard to live up to; I'm looking forward with great pleasure to the fact that 7 of the 11 students who have signed up for the May classes are folks with whom I've worked before. I'm also grateful for the patience of those folks who have sent me their CDs: I'm only human, as you've already discovered.

Traveling light

2005-04-26T09:34:00.000-04:00

One of the things that has always appealed to me about being a singer-songwriter is its portability. We travel light, and thus we can go places that theater and ballet and other forms of music find difficult to get to. I often think of what we do as some of the cheapest, and nonetheless some of the best (Annie Gallup fits this description beautifully), musical theater in America. While some of the most fun I've ever had onstage was had in the company of brilliant musicians like Nina Gerber and Cary Black, and while I will forever consider their willingness to work with me as an honor, I've never put a touring unit together, either with these fine musicians or any of the other musicians with whom I've been privileged to work. Economics are an important part of it, but not the only part. In a way, solo touring is a self-fulfilling prophecy, but one with which I am content.

Being a singer-songwriter is like being a predator (or more aptly given the music industry, a scavenger)-- it requires a certain range. How one covers that range is an important question. Call me a romantic, but I have always hoped that what I do as a solo artist is right livelihood in a Ghandian sense. All of the gasoline I've burned is of course evidence against this understanding, but I try to use cars with good gas mileage and run them into the ground. My current car, a '99 Mercury Cougar with roughly 130.000 miles on it, is simultaneously the sportiest and the most useful car I've ever owned. With 4 cylinders and a 5-speed manual, I can coax 35-38 mpg out of it on the highway. Since it's a hatchback, I can fit guitars, luggage and my little PA in it as well.

I admire the heroic touring by rail that Jane Voss and Hoyle Osborne used to do in the '70s and '80s--watching the two of them shlepp their instruments and luggage off the train and onto the platform in the Salem train station was a poignant spectacle I'll never forget--but until or unless we develop a national passenger rail system that serves the entire country in an efficient manner, it's just not possible these days. Even back in the '80s, I can recall that when I returned home from a gig in St. Louis by rail (because of flight pricing, it was the only economic way to get home), the train was delayed a few hours in Massachusetts because they had to re-lay the track. One of the reasons I've stayed in New England despite its expense is the sheer density of gigs per square mile within the range of an overnight stay.

One of the things I've gained in travelling light and leaving the cities is an appreciation of the cultures of small towns and rural enclaves. Some of the hippest people I've ever met live in such places, and some of the most gracious hospitality I've ever received has been in such places. I see it as a signal honor to be a a guest of their culture and communities. The world economy and bad US policy are bringing in sweeping changes in our common life. God knows what's going to happen as the American Empire breaks down as the British Empire did, but I can't help but think that it's what I've learned from small communities that will provide survival clues for Joan and me. And that those of us who have travelled light by choice will have a slight advantage over the rest of us, as we all find that we must travel light by necessity.

Monday night at the Cantab

2005-04-23T10:01:00.000-04:00

Last Monday night Joan and I went to the Cantab Lounge in Cambridge to troll for students (see previous post) at Geoff Bartley's open mike and were treated to a feature performance by Kirsty McGee and Mat Martin. Geoff has done an exemplary job of turning this event into a supportive venue for new talent, and the Tuesday night Bluegrass open mike into something of a local cultural phenomenon, despite the fact that the Cantab, as a meeting place for multiple communities in a very small space, is not an ideal venue for music. As in any bar, even in a homogeneous community, there are multiple agendas: conversation and socialization, relaxation, checking out the opposite sex, active alcoholism, selling booze on the management's part, and, oh yes, music. When we're honest, we musicians can't really fault any of these agendas, since we might engage in any number of them ourselves at various times in our lives. The problem with mixing music in with the rest of them is that music is rests as well as notes, and it's hard to find silence in an active bar.

There's yet another agenda that at this point might be the thing that keeps the Cantab's open mike nights going: musicians socializing with other musicians. Many of us are working so hard that it's difficult to find a bunch of us together in one place. But it's good to get together and compare notes (as well as rests). If a not-yet-fully-developed musician takes the stage (there were damn few last Monday night--the roster leading up to the McGee and Martin included fully developed ones like Ray Chesna and Ellen Groves), it's actually a good thing to have a noisy bar nearby to cover our own lapses as an audience as we socialize and/or do business with one another. For a developing artist, the only place you can get better feedback is on the street, where the only people who listen for long are the ones who are enjoying the act. If you get silent attention from most folks at the Cantab, you're doing very well (as did McGee and Martin, who were astonishingly good despite the aformentioned handicaps). If you get the attention of the whole bar, including those folks who have other things they'd rather be doing, you're doing very well indeed.

Like frequent Boston Globe correspondent Scott Alarik, and like Ellen and her musical partner David Fishken, Geoff, who has been astonishingly good himself for many years, is providing the musical community an incredibly important service by doing a relatively thankless task. More power to them all.

Will Shetterly and Emma Bull

2005-04-20T14:20:00.000-04:00

Will Shetterly was kind enough to give me a welcome mention in his blog, It's All One Thing. Both Will and his wife Emma Bull are science fiction and fantasy writers. I was entranced by the attitude toward music demonstrated by Emma's protagonist in her novel War for the Oaks (which I had devoured whole on a transcontinental flight), and dropped her a note via the old GEnie network. She and Will and I have been pen pals and mutual fans ever since. They're two fine writers, escaped from LA and newly settled in the Tucson area. Good luck to you with those screenplays, guys.

My summer teaching schedule

2005-04-20T09:01:00.000-04:00

I just sent this along to Don for the web site; might as well share it with you
guys as well.

June 10-12 Rowe Camp and Conference Center, Rowe, MA
June 24-25 Old Songs Festival, Altamont, NY

July 10-15  Common Ground on the Hill, Westminster, MD
July 17-22  World Voices World Visions, URI Kingston, RI
July 30-August 5  Puget Sound Guitar Workshop, Port Orchard, WA

August 6-7  Hands On Guitars, Chehalis, WA
August 21-25  91.9 Summer Acoustic Music Week, Geneva Point Center,
      Center Harbor, NH

Really digital--

2005-04-18T11:00:00.000-04:00

David Eckman tells me he downloaded "Alleluia, the Great Storm Is Over" from one of the internet music services the other day, either MusicMatch or I-Tunes. It was featured via the Christine Lavin compilation "Follow That Road", on the Rounder label (thanks again, Christine). If you find it, let me know and I'll put a link to it on the web site. Right now, I'm thinking of it as my first "single"....

My Shepherd Will Supply My Need--acknowledging a season of grief

2005-04-17T11:51:00.000-04:00

I've sung it many times in the choir--Virgil Thomson's My Shepherd Will Supply My Need, a wonderful arrangement from the 1930's of the old Appalachian hymn--but last Thursday in rehearsal it made me weep. This morning at the service, I used a technique I learned from Ann Mortifee to make sure I didn't weep, because, after all, when I sing in public I do it for others (although singing in the choir is something I also do for myself--I'm very clear about how grounding and nourishing it is to use my voice in the service of somebody else's vision, in this case, the Church of St. Andrew and its choir director, Amy LeClair). But upon reflection, the weeping reinforced my conviction of how powerful song can be as an agent of emotional change and growth.

In this case, the song bound up my sense of the treasure in traditional music with the death of Charles Guy Whiteside, who was my brother-in-law in 1990 when he died. I've spoken to audiences many times on what a wonderful, kind man Charlie was. His sister Christine sewed this line from the hymn on Charlie's panel of the AIDS quilt:

Not as a stranger or a guest, but like a child at home.

My remembrance of grief at the loss of Charlie was tied up with my grief at the loss of contact with the entire Whiteside family at the dissolution of my first marriage (except for occasions of family celebration around my daughter, in which my new family and I have always felt welcomed and loved by the Whitesides). Losing Charlie was my first experience (and I know how fortunate I am in being able to say this) with this kind of loss and grief as an adult.

Prior to last Thursday, I had just been to the funeral of my Aunt Julie Wuhan, the last of my father's generation in his family, who outlived all her siblings and died at the age of 91. I had driven two days to be in time for the viewing at the funeral home, accepted the gracious welcome of my cousins and my aunt's church, and for the first time got to see my aunt's photo of my grandfather and his parents, my grandfather in the Tsar's military uniform which he abandoned in his escape to America. I also got to see some of my aunt's poetry, set in rhyme and meter. She wrote in one about the school that sheltered her, and I know enough about my family's turbulent history to understand a little about what it sheltered her from. I helped sing her on and bury her next to her beloved husband the next day, and got in the car after lunch to drive home.

I began to realize how much I had lost when I left Michigan, even though it's clear that leaving Michigan was the best thing I could do for my survival and growth. I also realized that my grieving for my father, Jack Franke, with whom I had had a complex relationship, was not done, but that I had understandably postponed much of it as I built a new marriage with Joan, and helped her through the loss of her father, Jack Sherman.

I worked through my grief at the death of my colleague Freyda Epstein by writing two songs, Collateral Damage and Day of the Dead , and finally by hearing a song by my friend the Rev. Robert Jones of Detroit which opened at least the possibility of forgiveness for her killer in recalling Jesus' forgiveness on the Cross.

I understand very well that dealing with grief is part and parcel of this stage of my life. You live this long, and you need to pay attention to not only the loved ones that need to be mourned, but also to the many roads not taken that themselves need to be mourned so we can continue on the roads we have chosen. What amazes me is how powerful and how useful songs can be in cutting though our resistance and helping us to pay this needed attention. Taking part in the creation of such songs is taking on the vocation of a healer. It's good work, no matter what the pay. Our culture badly needs songs that deal with this stage of life as well as with younger ones. I guess that's why I'm still doing this, and why I admire so much those colleagues of my generation and older generations who are still active in spite of the corporate music industry. It's worth writing about the truth that confronts us as we explore the territory of aging, for our own sakes as well as for those who will follow us on this path. I'm grateful to Virgil Thomson for his help.

Body English

2005-04-16T02:13:00.000-04:00

Linda Waterfall tells me that she's re-issuing Body English on CD, and is pleased with the sound quality. When I first heard that tape, I damn near wore it out in my car's cassette player as I drove from gig to gig. It changed my opinion of Linda from something like, "killer musician, great soul, amazing voice, good songwriter" to "This is a fully mature artist at the height of her powers!" It grabbed me and wouldn't let go. Those of you who didn't get to hear it the first time should keep an eye out for its release at her web site. I'm so blessed to be teaching with her and with other great teachers this coming summer at Week II of the Puget Sound Guitar Workshop.

Apologies

2005-04-15T11:09:00.000-04:00

Apologies to anyone who tried to post yesterday and couldn't--I had the site set so that only registered members of the Blogger community could post. I've changed that setting so that anyone can post here, which was my original intent. I should have remembered my Harbor Sweets experience--read the manual!

Trouble in this world--it'll be alright

2005-04-14T12:09:00.000-04:00

I was just about to write a thoroughly curmudgeonly piece on the demise of two of my favorite internet music streams when I heard a familiar voice--my own--coming at me over WUMB-FM's stream. "Trouble In This World" has sort of dropped out of the repertoire, so I listened carefully to hear what I was telling myself:

"Trouble in this world will find you on your way,
But keep on walkin, you'll be home some day."

As it turns out, it was good advice. Radio Nonsense, operating out of St. Paul, Minnesota, seemed to be gone. It's the closest thing to truly free-form radio programming you're likely to hear over the internet. In the last hour, for instance it's played a version of "The Young Man Who Wouldn't Hoe Corn" from the Anthology of American Folk Music, and a comic version of "Stairway to Heaven" by Dread Zeppelin, as well cuts by Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Zappa. But in the middle of last night, its familiar cryptic web site (Our Mission, indeed!) had been replaced by a birth announcement. While I heartily congratulate the Sosna family on their new addition (a very cute and very well-documented little girl), I was afraid that Scott Sosna's brilliant music programming was a casualty to the practical concerns of new fatherhood (if Mr. Sosna's software programming is anywhere near as good, your business needs him). Not to worry, this morning both the site and the programming are back online. Mother and baby seem to be doing fine, too.

The news is not quite as sanguine at Radio Amber. For the past couple of years, Jeffrey Bottoms in Houston, TX has been digitizing obsolete recording media and in the process creating an astonishingly diverse compilation of music from the first half of the 20th century, everything from Sacred Harp to Deanna Durbin, Willie McTell to Bing Crosby, and many obscure but interesting artists as well. He just can't afford to stream any more, and like many of the most talented of our colleagues, needs a day job to keep body and soul together. If I remember correctly, Mr. Bottoms is just out of college and facing an uncertain job market. He asks for your prayers, and cash if you've got it to spare.

The history of interesting, meaningful songs and music is the history of obsessed individuals, people who see intense value in songs and music that don't register on the value scale of corporations. If music were truly sold in a free market, these individuals would be making a modest living doing what they do and love best. But we Americans no longer own the airwaves in common, and don't in the present political climate have much hope of holding those that do own them accountable. And so the millions who would be nourished, encouraged and delighted by our actual culture are distracted from it by a corporate music industry whose sole function seems to be to exclude artists, art and history, in order to serve stockholders.

And yet, artists will continue to create, and all humans will continue to need art. It seems to be hard-wired in us. The Internet still gives me hope as a means of distribution and a repository of our musical culture. Keep on walkin'.

Welcome

2005-04-12T13:24:00.000-04:00

Welcome to The Song Journal, perhaps more accurately at this point Bob's Song Journal, informal postings about how things are going in the world of this singer-songwriter, and occasionally, how things are going in the world. My personal goals here are to lower my obscurity quotient by opening up a dialogue with audience and colleagues.

Work on the new live album is going swimmingly; I'm looking forward to working with Andrew Calhoun on his Waterbug label. Thanks are due (and will be noted) to Rich Warren, Eric Arunas and WFMT-Chicago for recording the concert. The working title is The Other Evening In Chicago. I've been editing the recording on my old Compaq computer using Audacity running on the Mepis Linux operating system. Mel Green has agreed to do design. Our goal is to get the recording out by the end of June. Watch this space!