A friend of mine celebrates a birthday today. He stands about 6’6” tall, massive, but not the least bit intimidating. Despite his considerable size, his depth of character impresses most. And his laugh…that laugh could shake solid structures. His name is Mike Hodge, and today I’m thinking of a song that reminds me of him. I got to know Mike in college when we were both in a loosely-organized Christian organization called United Christians on Campus. We had “functions” but we mostly spent time in conversation and in playing music – all kinds of music. I was a fairly traditional Catholic, raised on the idea that personal prayer and piety would provide the surest route to everlasting favor. But Mike was a social activist, believing that religion should make a physical difference in peoples’ lives. When people are hungry, they [...]

There is a quote attributed to a Chinese writer by the name of Zhuangzi, and it goes like this: “Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.” As confusing as the quote may be, I’ve always appreciated the idea. It leads me to ask myself a related question: Is my present experience more real or those that came before? In one sense, we only exist in the moment, but in another sense every moment is a product of all the moments that preceded it. This leads me to my question for those who might read this: What is most real to you – now or then? Just a couple of days ago, ice coated the insides of the windows of [...]

Some years ago, I remember a young man coming to me and talking about ways to make big money in performance music. He was talking about venues and record deals and finding that golden formula to launch a career. The fellow was not only young in years, but he was also pretty young in music. I offered but one piece of advice: Fall in love with the music, make that the most important thing. I still believe it. The public is strange. The public creates superstars then relegates most to the has-been heap in pretty short order. Many of my favorite “famous” artists created some of their best works long after the public at large was finished with them. Other performers seemed to fall out of public favor and disappear completely. If you do what you do primarily because you [...]

What do Hank Aaron, Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton, and Nelson Mandela have in common? They all made it to the very top in their respective professions, and after that…they keep on going! In each case, they loved what they did before they were at the top of their games, while they were at the top, and long after the intensity of the limelight had faded. What about you? What do you do for pure love? I remember when Hank Aaron hit record-breaking home run number 715. Television shows were interrupted all across the country as the relatively young black man from southern Alabama stroked Al Downing’s pitch over the wall in left center. With one swing, he broke a record that had stood for thirty-nine years. At thirty-nine years of age at the time, Aaron’s baseball skills were cresting, or [...]

Publicity…it can mean so much. It’s often the difference between a very successful act and another that plays for an empty venue. Not only that, but publicity can actually change the way a person or group perceives or is perceived. Recently Sound Traveler played for the Space Coast State Fair in Cocoa, Florida. It was not a gigantic enterprise, but it was a good old-fashioned fair. It had enough swooping, spinning, swirling rides to make me queasy just to look at them. It had enough sugary, greasy, sugar-coated fried substances to challenge the strongest digestive system. There were also shooting galleries, gambling games, and fun houses all surrounded by streamers and lights. But something was missing from this fair that I remembered from the fairs I experienced as a kid. Where were the side shows? What I remember most of [...]

Where were you The Day the Earth Stood Still? When I was a tiny kid I remember watching a sci-fi flick with that title. I loved it. There was a space ship, a laser-shooting robot, a slick hero, and a beautiful heroine. But in the end, for me, it was just a movie. The day my earth really stood still and hovered for just a second occurred in February of 1964. I was one of over 74 million American television viewers at the time who shared the experience of watching an upstart group of British musicians filling relatively small TV screens. The picture quality was pasty at best, the sound was marginal, but the energy was nuclear at the least. John, Paul, George, and Ringo immediately awakened in me a passion for the magic of music that still resonates today. [...]

Sound Traveler has just completed a coast to coast music trip! Well, maybe it is not quite as impressive as it might first sound. We traveled from Cape Canaveral all the way to the Tampa/ St. Pete area to participate and teach in The Sunshine State Acoustic Music Camp. Technically Cape Canaveral and Tampa Bay are located on opposite coasts, so we’re not really lying. Patty had attended the camp several times as a student, but this was her first visit as an instructor. On the way back home, we talked about how it felt to change places – from the audience to the stage. She will have to tell you of her experience, but I shared what it felt like the first time I performed on the stage at the huge Singing on the Mountain Festival at Grandfather Mountain [...]

What was a defining moment for you? I remember one when I was in high school. By that time I had been playing guitar for a while, but the time had come for me to spend my very hard-earned money on the guitar that would be my first real guitar. The choice was between a slick-white Fender Mustang electric guitar which I felt sure could lead me to a meteoric career in rock and roll or a beautiful straight acoustic Yamaha 350 guitar, taking me in a completely different direction – toward folk, folk-rock, and sacred music. I doubt Robert Frost ever played guitar, but I think he knew the kind of dilemma I faced that day in Schroeder’s Music Store in Savannah, Georgia when he wrote: And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. [...]

A good friend of mine died yesterday. Not that we were especially close, she was just one of the kindest, warmest, must humble, and beautiful spirits to ever spend time on the earth. And everyone who knew her knew that about her. Her name was Luci Jo. Among her other attributes, Luci Jo was a singer. No, you didn’t see her on stage or hear her on the radio. Hers was not a voice that made people stop what they were doing to listen. But one thing was beyond certain – she sang from the heart and from the soul with maximum exuberance. I identified with her in that because I too, since very early times, sing at my top volume and intensity in church – even if I don’t know the song very well. If I do know it [...]

If you’re a performer, and we all are performers in one arena or other, audience response is generally a major factor in determining success or failure of any endeavor. But not always. Have you ever been in the situation where one person made all the difference in how you rated a performance? I remember playing at a festival on top of Beech Mountain in North Carolina many years ago. I was having a good day, but I was new to the area and didn’t really know anyone there. Between sets a grizzled storyteller came to my table, sat down, and engaged in a good-old visit. He let me know how good he thought I was, naming songs he’d particularly enjoyed and suggesting others as well. The man’s name was Doc McConnell, and he made my day. Later I saw him [...]