I’m still on a high from having manifested for the first time live, my solo presentation, via the renewed partnership of drummer Dean Sharp. We played Sunday night at Ken Rockwood’s Music Hall in New York’s lower east side. Dean and I were both still sizzling with inspiration from having seen Daniel Lanois’ Black Dub at the Bowery Ballroom a few night’s back. Daniel’s guitar tone is second to none in my book. Such is accomplished fundamentally because he caresses the guitar, rather than picks it with his right hand. My favorite guitarists work with both bare hands – Jeff Beck, Lanois, Montgomery, Buckingham and Knopfler. Playing thusly creates a sweetness of tone. Bare skin either pops the string or whispers it rather than attacks it, as does a plastic pick. Something about the hand surgery I had in December left me feeling better playing guitar without a pick. Whereas the technique hurt like hell to get used to, the reward has made me attend in childlike anticipation to any time the horizon promises me with the guitar. I’m blessed to still have such passion at age 51, which leads me back to the blessing.

Tom Townsend and I were teenage buddies growing up in Jacksonville, Florida.
We played in bands together before going our separate ways–he to St Louis and I to New York. We’ve both followed our artistic passions – Tom pursued advertising and I pursued music. Last night I was playing in Carnegie Hall.

Today was one of those beautiful sunny mornings after an evening snow. I took a morning stroll in Central Park about the same time that my friend Tom and my wife Margo were walking the crash site in Savannah, Georgia. Tom’s 21 year old son Alex tragically died there in a car accident a few days ago. Margo called and shared her sadness. We disconnected and I cried. When I looked up towards the sun and wondered as to the purpose in all this sorrow, powder from the leafless branches took to wind in a sparkling eclipse. Blinding white glitter brought an ethereal moment of assurance that Alex was fine and perhaps more so than we. I so wanted to savor and extend this feeling that I hurried inside to the Whole Foods at Columbus Circle and bought a perfect cup of coffee hoping to return and sip it in the paradise I had left. Instead, high over me and my perfect cup of coffee, a grey cloud front had pushed a blue sky and all the comfort it shined into my memory.

There is a beautiful bridge in this town that I’ve known about for years from past tours. Its European arched motif is as magical over the Susquehanna as the Pont Neuf is over La Seine. This was a reward that I had wanted to give myself for years. I would photograph the bridge in the dawn fog while enjoying a wonderful cup of coffee after morning yoga and meditation.

It is the duty of any self-respecting New Yorker to scoff at such a town. The New Yorker needs to believe that there is something wrong with THIS place. Inarguably, St Louis provides plenty for the big city East-coaster to satire, but as far as the way folks ARE here; this is probably the way things SHOULD be.

It’s as if my life was up 'til this point has been a wrestling match. The bell has sounded at the end of round fifty. I collapse onto the three-legged stool in the ring corner. My manager rescues my pulsating face with a cold towel. I tilt my head back helping his yell cut the arena roar – “Its time to honor the things that come easy from this point forward.”

Thousand Islands, New York – Home of the dressing.

Jacksonville, FL
In anyone’s hometown, after having been away for a long spell, one feels the obligation to exchange personal and career updates amid friends and family. Over wine or over coffee is my preferred setting for this experience. Unfortunately, I have to do this sort of catching up before and after my performances when I play in Jacksonville.

I am taking an unplanned plane trip from New York to Jacksonville to attend my step mother’s birthday party. Tomorrow I must return to New York to rehearse and perform with Richie.

Drifting without a base as I did 15 years ago with Stephanie required hours of logistical maneuvering. This time around I have little interest in sculpting my future in my mind before I actually experience it. The time spent not planning has been joyfully transferred to Margo, the music, reflection and contemplation. Logistical inefficiencies result but the benefits of spontaneity offset. Whereas I’m slightly inconvenienced by not having a home base, I’m surprisingly not annoyed by the scenario. I’m adapting by traveling very light. Wearing clothes for repeated days is oddly liberating. We are spending less time in any one place than we thought we would at the onset of this adventure. We have unfortunately moved too many belongings on our initial set-up trips to Florida.

This week I recorded with some greats– singer Jimmy Hall(with Swamp Cabbage) in Nashville and the Preservation Hall Band (with Richie) in New Orleans. Both were extremely enjoyable and successful sessions. Both happened efficiently and with only limited preparation. This is a departure for me. Perhaps this new methodology is the result of the scaling back which Margo and I must do these days. In the studio I am allowing myself to dive into things without elaborate forethought. Unburdened by the objective of loyally sticking to plans, the music is fresher, seemingly more magical and more pleasant. I have arrived at this place only because I trust my skills like never before. This wonderful place of faith is not blind. It is a faith in every moment that my history will guide me through my future.

Plane from New York to New Orleans

After three days of solo shows it hits me that it’s not enough to just offer the world beauty because there is plenty of that freely available in nature. An artist worthy of public attention provides something beyond what nature offers. Art reminds us of our own nature, as nature is not just the trees and rocks. Nature is also our emotions and our instincts. The artist reconnects us to a nature that we have either forgotten or no longer recognize. Good art empowers as it awakens our feelings and ignites our imagination. Inspiration is the notion of acting upon our imagination. Deep down I know that it is as much my calling to inspire as to play.

I have come to New Orleans, partly to record with the Preservation Hall Band but also to look into helping others with home rebuilding. This writing has reminded me to not loose focus on my music work. Leave construction to others.

East Hampton, NY

Margo and I rose at 5:30am and saw dawn do the same an hour later yet another 15 miles up the road at Montauk Point. Thirty or so fishing boats had beaten us to the moment, beautifully shadowing Block Island far beyond and the sun further still.

Jersey City, NJ

Sometimes a twenty-minute nap yields a surprisingly disproportionate reward. Margo and I spent all day driving up to Jersey City, NJ from Richmond, VA, one of my favorite towns. Upon arrival, I slept briefly yet deeply on the couch of our now rented house and successfully processed the following bothersome event.

On the last few miles of the journey, with the Manhattan skyline ahead and Lady Liberty slightly to its right, I proposed that we each make a list of things we wanted to do with what remained of our lives. She completed her list in under a minute, yet 10 minutes up the road, where I-78 dies into the Holland Tunnel madness, Margo was still waiting patiently to fill my side of the note page.

I awoke to the epiphany that for a long while, perhaps the last 20 years, I have confused what I wanted TO BE with what I wanted TO DO. I realized that I have been driven by the desire TO BE recognized (not necessarily famous) just widely recognized, for being a quality artist. I could have easily dictated what I wanted TO DO but it is my personal tradition to complicate a simple task. My pre-nap TO DO list would have to have been cumbersome and conditional – I want to BE “big enough” to play in opera houses all over the country… I want to BE fluent in French. I slept more because the game had paralyzed me than because of the seven-hour drive I had just completed.

The nap made me realize that what I want TO DO is accomplishable¬– 1. Study Jazz guitar 2. Open a venue someday 3. Help the needy repair or build homes 4. Study French 5. Lead a small “house band” ensemble that plays great instrumental tunes. I realized also that I want TO BE, as currently defined, is attainable only if I address what I want TO DO and stop obsessing over the TO BE. Regardless, the game had exposed how superficial and exhausting has been my quest for a modicum of fame and how I must jettison things I’m currently doing that are not on the above short TO DO list.

It’s Stella’s birthday. She’s 76 years old and today marks 50 years after she manufactured me at her age of 26. I start this rainy day of preparation to leave the mountains mystified by how the local folk can waft through their lives in what appears to me to be slow motion. Margo reminds me that yesterday we had accomplished in one hour what would have taken a day to do back home in Jersey. Up in Hemptown, we’ve learned there are two kinds of people: “town and mountain”. Them and us.

It seems from municipal paperwork found at Stella’s that it’s the perfect month to renew my Ford 150 tag. Margo and I drive 15 or so miles from Hemp to Blue Ridge, the county seat. The rain pelts us intermittently in blinding sheets. It doesn’t come down like this in New York. As soaked refugees we rush to the shelter of the courthouse only to confront the annoying discomfort of overcompensating summer air conditioning. As our wet clothes cling we receive comfort in noticing that there are no competitors for the attention of the county clerks. Margo and I are absolutely the only folks in Fanin County at this moment who are obtaining a new tag. Back in Jersey, we would have wasted a half a day to accomplish what we did here in North Georgia in five minutes. In Jersey we would have lost sleep the night before enduring the incessant Yankee ritual – strategizing how to beat the rush. I joked with the clerk that I had brought my wife so she could become acquainted with everyone, should I be unable to handle licensing issues on my own. Perhaps there was a light laugh underneath her puzzlement at my act of strange familiarity. I found a vintage car restorer shop where the old town center gas station had been. Three or four old men were sitting around shooting shit at a snails pace. Needing to have the F150 painted I inquired as to which amongst might be the proprietor. “Oh he’s gone, left about an hour ago. We all waiting on ‘eem to.” To Margo in our warm and dry Toyota, I returned with my failure to connect with the locals. In two words, she astutely summed up why I hadn’t done so well – “Jersey plates”.

Hemptown, North Georgia Mountains. I had hoped to wake to a proper cup of dark roast and half and half, neither of which I had. The half and half was served fat-free therefore rendering the product useless to me. The coffee grounds, purchased with so much promise from Earth Fare the night before in Asheville, had been dripped through a “coffee maker” which it isn’t at all as it produces lighted browned hot water that is not tea and definitely not coffee. I therefore started the day hating the south aware of the chasm between the world I want it to be and the world as it is. In the afternoon I took the Ford 150 to get its horn repaired. Neither the mechanic nor the customer service representative instilled in me the sense of confidence that I feel up North when I entertain the idea of spending hundreds of dollars in an establishment. Questions arise: Have I been hoodwinked by the Northern salesmen or are the Southern ones just being honest, presenting no sense of false hope, until they know what they’re getting into? When we were wrapping up and I was writing my contact info on the service order, the rep asked one of the oddest questions I’d ever been asked¬. “Wow. With fingers like that, I’m guessing you’re either a guitarist or a proctologist”. I scribbled my web site address on a post it note and left. As I was gathering my effects out of old 150, said rep comes out to the parking lot proudly proclaiming: “Boy, I called that one didn’t I.?” A complete stranger had essentially asked me if I stuck my finger up peoples asses. Welcome to North Georgia.