I released an official single of my song, “Look to the Water” on Friday, February 9, in honor of my buddy Denise Parkinson’s birthday, and also the opening of her Delta: Rediscovered exhibit that evening in Little Rock. The exhibit showcases historic black and white photos from the early 20th-Century Arkansas Delta, taken by photographer Dayton Bowers, and also features Denise’s mini-documentary, “Daughter of the White River”, about life on the lower White River and the River People’s most famous community member, Helen Spence. Denise incorporated this song as part of her documentary. You can view the exhibit and the documentary together through April 28th of this year, in the Loft Gallery of the Butler Center Galleries, across the street from Little Rock’s River Market. And you can listen to and download this single version of “Look to the Water” through the Spring Equinox of this year! After that, wish me luck on this, it will be part of a new full length digital album. 🙂
“Bad Business”, the tune I released just a couple of days before “Look to the Water,” has its first review- wonderful praise, totally unsolicited, and immensely appreciated! Read it here! Thanks so much to Audiofuzz reviewer Phil King for his support and his assessment of this new piece, which has raised $400 for my friend Niki de Soto, recently widowed. Niki sent her thanks, and says that it helps so much. Good job, my heart-tribe.
Here’s that song again, if you haven’t yet heard it.
Proud of this one. It was a trial by fire, emotionally, to get it ready for release this week.
I’m asking y’all do to a paid download of this one if you are able to do that, at the amount of your choosing.
That’s because I am sending ALL of the download money for this new song to Niki de Soto, longtime friend of mine and widow of my friend Brennan, who licensed a previous mix of this tune from me when he was alive. We sing to mourn, we sing to heal, we sing to keep the memories real.
Yesterday I got to accompany my buddy Denise White Parkinson on a tiny pilgrimage.
Denise is the author of Daughter of the White River, a book which has inspired more than one new song from me in the past year, and which I am producing the audiobook of right now. We have a lot in common, as nomadic gals who’ve both found an unexpected home in the place that raised us, and we have a lot of shared big feelings about Arkansas history, conservation, and culture.
So when Denise, whom I’ll be supporting this Friday evening at her Delta: Rediscovered gallery reception in Little Rock (free admission, join us!) invited me to take a little road trip with her to see Clarendon’s historic White River bridge, I said yes.
The majority of local folks hope to conserve the historic bridge, which the Department of the Interior wants demolished, and see it become the landmark pedestrian bridge it deserves to be. I am told that demolition would cost the state (and the public) easily twice as much as conservation in this case. Learn more about the organization working to save the bridge.
Some of y’all know me as a child of many rivers, and how much that chosen identity has inspired me recently. Arkansas has several big rivers, all of them mighty, a little frightening sometimes, and gorgeous all the time. I’ve spent my life admiring them when I’m at home, and I have no idea how many times I’ve visited or crossed what I think of as the big three (The Mississippi, the Arkansas, and the White River) in my life. I still have Delta-born living relatives who remember the flood of 1927, and I am learning their stories. As a result of all of this, I have at least one brand new river song that I hope to release this year. Here’s a clip. Turn on your sound. 🙂
tadaa! And this isn’t even one of the ones I’d said I was planning to release this month! I hope you enjoy it. My lyrics and notes about the song are below.
All right, I wasn’t supposed to have any concerts or do any touring until much later this year, but magical things always seem to happen around my birthday. This year, two very magical things are happening, and I get to be there! I’m letting you all know in case you’re able to be there, too, at either one.
So I’m currently only on Patreon as a patron and not as a creator. But I do have a very simple monthly/yearly exclusive download subscription that you are all welcome to take part in if you wish. I send out an exclusive mp3 to my subscribers each month. I have offered this (via PayPal) since 2009. No pressure on this. None. Zero. But you’re welcome to join us if you like and if your budget allows. It’s very un-fancy (I email everybody individually with a file or a link to stream/download and that’s it), but we have a good time.
I use this as a way to try new things (for December I recorded an exclusive 15-minute podcast with unplugged live cuts of three of the new songs I wrote in 2017, plus some “talky bits” as brother Damh always says), to let you have sneak peeks of stuff before it’s released, and to share things I’ve had buried in hard drives for ages that nobody’s heard. Sometimes I send out live performances of songs, but more often I send unreleased tunes or bits of narration, brand new things or older things that just haven’t had their turn yet. It keeps me creating and gives me a regular deadline, plus a little money for tea or gas or a donation to causes I care about. There are about 25 of us right now, and there will always be room for more. Also, you can sign up or cancel at any time; whatever you need to do is ok with me.
We had two more sold-out shows (thank you, Portland!) as well as crowds that were all in with every note, everywhere we went, even in Albuquerque on a Tuesday night. It was bliss, y’all. I am more than a little sure that we’ll be doing this again sometime, and I live for that day. We even got some down-time at the Quileute Oceanside Resort in La Push, Washington, walking along the wild shoreline and watching agog from our suite’s back deck as fierce little fishing boats rode the surf resulting from an offshore tropical storm! Talk about intense! Our thanks extend to the Quileute tribe for sharing the beauty of their coastline land with us. Learn more about the tribe and the reservation here.
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Keep an eye on my YouTube channel– I’ll be posting more song clips from the #MusesontheRoad live streams very soon.
This #BlacklivesmatterFriday weekend is rife with awesome hashtags like #shopsmall and #optoutside. I shared an emotional live video on Facebook this morning because my heart was overflowing a bit. We’re all connected, and for me and my indie music colleagues, every little download really does count. Some people may not believe me, but it’s true. I’m just so grateful, every day, for each and every person who appreciates my music. It helps that we still number only in the tens of thousands, I think, which are numbers I can reasonably wrap my brain around. 🙂 The truth is that this sweet life of mine wouldn’t be possible without folks who believe in scrappy, fierce indie songwriters- that would be you.
So thank you, again and again, for being here.
Here’s my Krampus carol in case you find a use for one. 🙂 ‘Tis the season, after all.
I’m writing from the back of the tour van this morning, as we cross Wyoming on I-80. It’s a clear, brisk day. This part of the country is RJ’s old stomping grounds, so we’re all in a great mood, learning stuff about the terrain from her as we drive.
This trip has been every bit as much of a dream come true as we all thought it would be so far. We began one week ago with our first online show, which had a great viewing crowd and gave us a solid starting budget for the whole tour. It also gave each of us a mood & confidence boost about having learned each other’s tunes. We kicked things off and everything sounded great! It was really happening!
The great crowds continued once our live shows began, starting with our hometown concert on October 27 in Fayetteville. Fayetteville is currently the hometown of 3/5 of the performers in this van, but I feel like I can claim it a little bit for myself as well. I have a lot of hometowns. 🙂 My husband and his folks were able to attend the Fayetteville show, and Lynda’s mama even made it out to see us in Kansas City on October 28, thanks to her sweet neighbors! We also have had so much heart-family in our audiences so far, everywhere feels like home.
Our Omaha concert on October 29th was the fourth of four in a row, and the Unity church of Omaha were such kind hosts to us. Their sanctuary/stage space was so beautiful that I’m certain it helped me relax and perform really well that night. We took some extra time in Nebraska to sleep, eat, shop, and reset before our day’s drive to Colorado on October 30th.
Halloween was our acclimation day in Denver (singing in the Mile High City is a lot easier if you give your body time to adjust to the altitude, I have learned). We slept in, ran errands, and went out to sushi in the evening (all of this in costume for me) with my beloved Rubiee, proprietress of Dryad Tea and Dryad Pottery. That night was Rubiee’s mom’s birthday, and so she joined us! Give Sushi Totoro in Aurora a try if you’re ever in the area. Yum.
Last night in Denver, thanks to Living Earth House, we had our very first sold-out show of the trip. The crowd was so very engaged, enthusiastic, and tuned in. We could not have asked for better. We’re expecting a small crowd in Utah tonight, and I’m looking forward to seeing some of Utah’s gorgeous landscape on the way in this afternoon.
Read on for the rest of our tour dates, which will be in Oregon, Washington state, and New Mexico, starting with our first of two Portland shows this coming Sunday night.
