Sometimes you get lots of good reviews when you release a new project and watch it fly away.
Sometimes you get very little feedback. Sometimes you get crummy feedback.
And sometimes, the very golden ticket of sometimeses, the true and soulful mentor of your heart and your craft writes the very first review you see, of this thing that you’ve poured all of your oomph into and are at last holding in your arms.
Here is what my beloved friend and teacher Ginger Doss sent to me after listening to the Stolen Season record for the first time. I share it with you, not just because her high regard is something I treasure, but because her description is so visual and so rich that I must offer you a bite.
“I am supposed to be listening to your latest release with a critical ear, but I can’t. The music and your voice rule my experience. And that is my highest compliment. Both in arrangement and mixing …I hear nothing I would change, nothing that could be better. I am just taken away by the music.
“This is the experience of listening to Stolen Season…
“You’ve just had the most awesome heart pounding, heart opening sex with someone you love more than life. You drift into sleep tangled in each other as a cool touch of air caresses the thin sweet sweat on your skin… and you dream… and in your dream you walk out onto a faded Southern porch with a big white rocking chair. Pulsing through the landscape in front of you is a thick brown river heavy with rain from a recent storm. Moss hangs from ancient spreading oaks and honeysuckle scents the air. You know someone special is there… and if you wait she will appear. You slide into the rocker and sip a sweet liqueur on ice that appears in you hand. A breeze takes you over and reminds you of someone, of someplace you ache to go. Shadows dance in the woods and tempt you to follow, but the gentle sway of the rocker lulls you into reluctance and a smile. Eyes close as your soul fills with the satisfaction that can only come when its most distant waves have finally found the shore.”