Music is increasingly difficult for me to have conversations with my peers, those close to my age. I don’t like the music they do. I call it dead people music…yeah, that’s a bit harsh, but music is subjective and I get to like what I like and that includes all kinds of music, but I’m always looking for new music to thrill me.

I took the girlfriends to see Boz Skaggs some years ago and it was new to them. Then xAmbassador. Then Teddy Swims. They didn’t know the music, but everyone in the audience stood the entire concert and sang every word with Teddy. Such a mixed crowd, too. Cowboys and suits. Moms and freaks.

My sister in law took me to see the Steep Canyon Rangers last summer and I loved the musicianship, though Blue Grass is not my jam. New Grass Revival gave us a pathway for Bela Fleck and the Flecktones to break out. His foray into working with YoYo Ma and Edgar Meyer was a brilliant side project on the MCA Masters series. Bill Monroe and Ricky Skaggs aside, the banjo is an under-used instrument outside of Blue Grass. Vince Gill plays banjo…give us more that’s not Blue Grass. And fiddle. Give us some fiddle that’s not hoedown or country.

The music I’m hearing in some sectors is doing some really good things with great production, lyrics and great singers. There’s a whole generation of singers who love the sound of a full-on wide open voice. Raye from England is so talented I’m in awe of her. Damn girl. It’s so fast and succinct and vocally masterful.

Let me back up to how I’m listening to the same things as my great nieces and nephews. Teddy Swimns started my recent foray into this soft jazzy, funky, sexy genre of pop music. John Splithoff followed and now I have Victor Ray (Busker from London), Allen Stone (his parents loved Stevie Wonder. I did, too and wore out my first 8 Track of Songs in The Key of Live that I listened to in my tinny Chevy Vega…yes, bright orange.). Lately, Goldford , Kevin Garrett, Great Good Fine Okay and LAB. I’ve always been an Xambassador fan and its fun to hear them a music beads for TV ads. I love that people are doing covers again. Thank you. A good song needs to be sung by all kinds of singers to get different interpretations of the same words and melodies.

Back to what prompted me to write tonight. Anything in music that gets presented to me has to have certain characteristics or I’m out. You should be at the farthest limit of your vocal ability. All of it, push that limit so the audience can hear and feel that. The vocal mechanism is very versatile, but you really can’t fake the skill part of it. I grew up near a lot of music production. From Kentucky, then Arkansas music was being created and honed by a bunch of really talented people. A few for me, like the Subdudes, Little Feat, Tab Benoit, Tower of Power (I know, SF band), Michael McDonald, Jay Giles Band, Joe Ely, Vince Gill, plus, Little Richard, Fats Domino, Paul Anka, Fabian, the Temptations, 3 Dog Night. Steely Dan still has my attention, every time I hear them. To keep me musically honest (okay, I sing against everything I hear, to see if I can do that). The Beatles happened, “Gloria” happened. Mixed in there were folk singers, rockers, slick/packaged smooth trios and “revues”. Let me clear, I detest revues or tribute shows…gag. I probably saw the original and know every move and lyric, so I don’t want an imitation. That’s for fans who want a fix.

Khalil brings me a change in attitude every time. Shawn Mendes should diversify, but his “Mercy” is still on my short list of songs I sing against. Recently, I’ve been thinking about all of the other songs that have been produced in between. So much music and I haven’t heard but a tenth of it. So I keep listening and trying to hear all of the attributes of different genres. I don’t particularly like reggae or techno, but some elements of both crop up in current and I admire the incorporation. Paul Simon brought in African music and we gained those intricate rhythms and there’s a current car commercial that has stunning African vocals. It would take me a long time to master that rapid lyric delivery.

Back to the subject, Benson Boone is in a very young market, but damn, he gives ALL of it. “Stay” is almost too campy, but his vocals save it. “Cry” lyrics are knives.

John Splithoff I’m grateful to every day. So smooth, so saxy. I love his honed craft with melody and his lyrics are bringing the European sensual tones to really wonderful arrangements and production. Chris Botti adds on trumpetsophistocation to “New York City Days”. Even the clearly poppy tunes are good. He’ll stay on my playlist for a long time.

Sidebar: I grew up singing jazz, classical and some pop, though in the 50s my dad was pretty strict. I had to go to my friend Missy Leibers house to watch the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and Elvis were verbotten.

Then my foster brother stationed in Japan sent my dad a huge radio with many frequencies and we listened to music from all over the world…Wolfman Jack played some great music on pirate radio from Mexico. Rhythm and Blues from the delta, Memphis, Atlanta and Mussel Shoals. New Orleans was jamming. I’m not a huge Almann Brothers fan, but Dicky Betts and Duane Almann were live wires, perfectly in sync and badass.

I heard country music and Tex Mex growing up, but it didn’t make my blood hot. Great singers and killer music, dirty bass, tricky riffs and vocals that were powerful, that got my attention. I knew a lot of Appelachian folksongs, Irish ballads, thanks to Wood Guthrie and Alan Lomax who gathered songs from all over America. I heard Lena and Ella and Mel Torme and Odessa and Edith Piaf and Julie London. Thelonius Monk and Dave Brubeck. Later in Nashville Lee Roy Parnell, and the Kentucky Headhunters. The King Snakes band was a group of guys who were by day producers, and A-list players who made my ears bleed at the Bluebird in Nashville. Thank you Dick Whitehouse for dragging me there so many times. It was LOUD.

Sinatra and Sammy were my parents generation and while Frank was a brilliant vocalist, it didn’t move me...Okay I love some of the songs he sang, but “My Way” turned me off…so anthemic and preachy. Maybe what people made of it turned me off.

I lose interest in singers who get a few hits and then coast on that for the rest of their careers. Linda Rondstadt was the first. Kd Lang the next. The first time I heard kd in Nashville she killed me. Amazing talent. Then she went to LA and did that “Constant Craving” crap and I was done. I realize that’s how artist keep working at what they want to do, but creativity takes a back seat. Lady Gaga keeps exploring and doesn’t play it safe. I’ll back up a bit and say that Stony Pony by Barbra Striesand was awful. So stiff with a practiced/rote relaxation of parts of speech. She didn’t know how to sing the songs. I’m a huge fan of hers from her early albums…I know every word of every song. But it was lame to me.

I might only like 8 bars of a song, but its because they were the best they could be.

When I was a kid my parents had great parties that would end with all these jazz musicians would set up in the living room and trombones, trumpets, cornets, drums, upright bass and my mother or Linda Nave at the keyboard of that baby grand. My mother went to No Texas State for their jazz program. I’ll bet she had to work hard to get permission to go so far to play jazz in the 1940…by train. She met my dad at Ithica, NY, she at William Smith and dad Hobart, very Ivy league. WWII happened and he went into the Navy as a flight instructor (Lt. JG) in Corpus Christi, TX and they eloped on a troop train across the county. My sister Fianna was born there. Anyway, we had a friend named Evan Bullock, who had a huge jazz collection. He had had polio, so walked on crutches and was a homely as Jimmy Durante. But he loved my mother and loved our family. He left her his record colletion when he died. I have some many stories about Evan. He was friends with Walter Tevis, who wrote the Hustler, and they did research at every pool hall in a large area from Louisville to Chicago to Memphis. Lots of beer and fights and stories. I love that I got to know him. Church secretary. Briliant mind. Terrible nasal laugh. Brought all the girls silk stockings, especially my beautiful mother. My dad was cool. He was cool in so many ways. He played drums on a ship one summer going to Europe. If I’m quirky smart, it’s my dad coming out. Great story teller, raconteur, Irish gabber, with perfect accents I wish I could do.

I have to mention Paul Thorn. I heard his “Burn The Trailer Park Down” on a Reno station while driving and had to call to find out who it was (this was before everything was online. Then I bought 3 of his albums. Delta blues, brutally true lyrics and killer licks. I saw him once and live was amazing. So irreverant, an observer of human behavior, like John Prine and Bob Dylan.

Chris Stapleton moves me almost everytime and I can easily ignore the songs that are album fillers. Short list. He has some Waylon Jennings licks that make me smile. Waylon was one sexy man when I met him in the late 80s. Damn. His music was the same way.

Susan Tedeschi (Trucks Band). She is brilliant.

David Wilcox, Sade (she sings with almost no vibratto and that is so hard!), Joni Mitchell (“Help Me”. Influences. Mick Fleetwood’s “Shakin’ the Cage” (thank you Rick Rockhill - Rocket - Rockhead). Becca Bramlett and Billy Burnett incinerate the tracks on that album from Capricorn’s attempted comeback, though it didn’t get much airplay. Too bad, but it moved me to wear out two copies of the album.

Post Malone (except his country stuff). I admire his ability to sing just about any genre and still sound like himself. Such a talent.

Hozier. So much hidden in there. I saw him with Mumford & Sons (they’re friends) and he was so quietly respectful singing backup vocals.

Goldford. I want more. Please, listen to him. Wonderful voice, lyrics I wish I could write (this is not my skill, though I’d like it to be.

Dennis Lloyd. Israeli producer, songwriter, singer. Catchy, hooky.

Most of pop, hip hop and whatever coming out of LA sooo generic. Nashville, too. Come ON. Stop sampling or copying hits. They are so interchangable, so generic. Group songwriting is an anathema.

I like Drake White. And you should find Marcus Hummon. Brilliant songwriter.

This is getting to be way too long and I have errands to run, so I’ll post this installment and do another one soon. Well, I might have to write about spring flowers and politics. Now there’s an odd pairing of topics!

Okay, two tidbits. I don’t like most of their music, but Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson didn’t mind that. We talked about other people’s music. Roseanne Cash’s dad loved her Rodney Crowell produced “Kings Record Shop” and he was right. I liked Rosie, even when she dragged me into things I wouldn’t normally do. Willie…I liked Star Dust”, but twang ain’t my thing. Did you know he was a jazz/pop singer first? He still makes me smile.

I know this is disjointed, but I’m plucking from memories. I’m going to go look at my stacks of CDs and cassettes (yes, I have a bunch of promo and unreleased tapes I can’t part with.

Winter Gardening

The other day a friend asked me how I occupied myself during the winter, when I couldn’t garden. I laughed and said that most of my gardening tasks happen when the weather is cold. In Spring there are lots of things to do, in Summer we enjoy the blooms and fruits of our labors, but in the Fall and Winter, we get the dig up plants and move them, play in our compost piles and plant bulbs and other plants. We do hard pruning and deep weeding in cold months, because there aren’t full green plants in our way. We can till and turn our flower beds, add manure and other additives to the soil, so they have time to percolate and enrich over the Winter.

We can shape large shrubs so in the Spring they can give a showy display of blooms. I’ll caution you not to prune lilacs in winter, because their Spring blooms are already set. Wait to prune those after they bloom in early Spring. I say this, but last year I didn’t prune my lilac at all and it was glorious. I have a weeping golden crabapple that now only bears the winter fruit. The larger birds feed on this fruit when there are no bugs or other food for them. The little tree also has some small wind chimes and a suet basket (wired shut to keep the pesky squirrels from trashing it), so the finches flit about its branches endlessly.

Pruning butterfly bush (buddleia) now works, and you can cut them back to the ground, if need be. They’ll come back. The same goes for Russian Sage.

I have a very shady flower bed off the back patio that is full of chipped bark ground cover. I didn’t have time to remove it before I transplanted my gardens when I moved in, so now that it’s cold I can rake all those wood chips out and replace them with new bedding soil, compost and manure. Once I get those beds in good shape I’ll plant daffodils, lilies, iris and other bulbs and tubers for next Spring. I’ve planted crocus and hyacinths there, so I can see those harbingers of Spring from my kitchen. I’ve already planted Sweet Woodruff, eucheria (coral bells), and violas there and next year they’ll add color and texture in those shady places. Update: The apple tree that kept these beds shady has been removed. It was old and very diseased. Now there is wonderful sunshine on beds that were once mostly idle. Well, nothing in my yard is completely idle. There is a clematis on a trellis that never fails to bloom. Sweet Woodruff, Lily of the Valley, Speedwell (veronica), crocus, bluet, and daylilies cover that not-great soil.

Winter is also a good time to till around and in between established plants to de-thatch those roots. You can even lift big clumps of lilies or iris or daises to loosen the soil that has compacted over time. This would be a good time to separate big clumps of those plants, if they’re overgrown. Give the rest to friends or donate them to public parks.

Voles are constant, but disturbing their tunnels helps keep the for doing significant damage.

Winter is an excellent time to deal with bugs like snails and other pests. By turning the soil, you disturb nests (think spiders and earwigs); you break up colonies and nests of eggs. For snails, I use diatomateous earth directly on the ground, especially in the areas where I’ve found shells and slime. This disrupts their digestive tracks, but won’t harm humans or pets. It’s actually good for the soil, too.

I’m just a gardener, and I don’t know all of the technical names or processes of professional horticulturists. But I do know that my methods are better than pesticides, herbicides, and other harsh chemicals.

These cold months also afford us the opportunity to cut back heavy vines like trumpet vine, wisteria, honeysuckle and Virginia Creeper. I have trumpet vine growing up in my plum tree, so when the leaves are gone, I’m going to whack that thing back and gain more sunlight to the flower beds below. I might whack some of the branches of that tree, while I’m up there. If you have evergreens, like cedar, spruce and fir trees, wait until the holidays to prune those and use the lopped branches to decorate your house! Pyracantha berries and bent twig wreaths are so much prettier with fresh cedar boughs intertwined. Plus, the smell is wonderful.

Have a wonderful holiday…happy gardening!

I don’t watch any TV news or much major network programming. Because it IS so programmed. I’ve stopped watching local news…it’s mostly reporting on death and disaster without much news about what’s happening in our community. The station owners are dictated to about what to present to the public, the tone of those reports and the narrow channeling of the content. It’s not curating, it’s controlling. I just can’t listen to or watch the utter guilelessness and intentional misinformation churned out daily. It’s gargbage. It’s wrong.

I do read a group of online newsfeeds and magazines from around the world. I glean the news from this variety of news sources and put together my own opinion about what is happening. And, yes, I have disdain for the rich people who are in control of what we see and hear and I applaud the brave truth-speakers who will push back against the mediocrity of those machines. The dumbing down of America has been a very real endeavor. They want us dumb and pliable. And our great brains, the thinkers are being lured away to other countries, so they can continue to think independently. It is defeating us. Education has become a dirty word to the right.

It is depressing. It is dehumanizing. It is not acceptable.

So, what to do?

We protest, we push back, we never give up, give in, give them the power to control and hurt us as if we don’t matter. We ALL matter.

It’s easy to be angry all the time. Some people I know have just shut down. Some fall into hysteria and get lost in the miasma of fear. My attitude is that I will remain who I am, speak out and never agree to the obvious greed and hatred of the right. The big tech guys are not the people I want making decision for me, especially the moral and ethical ones. They think they’re right because they made a bunch of money…it’s just makes them rich, not right. Numbers are not good moral markers. Slashing services and rights because they don’t pencil out on some spreadsheet or algorythm is just idiotic.

This chaos will probably get worse before we can shake off the horrible leadership and the lackeys who enable them. But, it will end. I hope that what comes after has a more human face, a more fair and thoughtful guiding intention. The lack of empathy saddens me every day. I pray for us all.

What does get my attention is interesting production, lyrical inovation, vocal purity, strength and agility. I like singers who don’t fall into the same patterns as others, who forge their own path, while keeping to the prinicpals of sound purity and keep pushing the boundries of those parameters.

I like complicated rhythm tracks, I like lyrics that say things in a new way. Music is the conversation of the younger generations. That’s not to say that older artists have nothing to say and that there’s not comfort in the familiarity of their product. But I am not a fan on trotting out the old guys/girls just so they can maintain their lifestyle. They usually sound like crap and should have quit a long time ago. Nostalgia does sell a lot of records, but it’s not my jam. I can hear when a singer stops giving their all, stops pushing the boundaries and just phones it in.

As singers get older they have to adapt to what their vocal chords will allow them to do. Or they push so hard with old equipment that they break the mechanism of their voice. Some move to less challenging types of vocals and most of the time it just doesn’t work for me. I love Belinda Carlisle, but her collaboration with Elton John makes me turn it off. The Lady Gaga Tony Bennett was dear and lovely, but I’ll keep the voice of Tony at his best in my head, thanks. I grew up listening to Ella, Lean, Mel Torme, Jack Jones, Edie Gorme, Julie London and even Edith Piaf. Dave Brubeck taught me to follow the different lines of tempo and melodic themes. Blue Rondo a la Turk pops us in my head at times. Ella’s Suppertime is still a song I struggle to conquer. Her vocal range and techique was astounding. She wrote that song, by the way.

Barbra Streisand pulled me out of lounge music and into musicals. I still know every lyric from Fanny Brice and My Fair Lady. I sang Carosel’s Mister Snow in my last concert. A capella. It’s a practice some for me, as it Where is Love from Oliver Twist. Pure vocal sound, with no vibrato is hard to sing. The dynamics of that song challenge me to keep it small and not reach for the big crescendo. Barbra tried to transition to pop music and it never really worked for me. Proununciations are different. Phrasing and breathing are different. Stage singing is hard on the voice,so I understand the migration, but it didn’t work for her in my opinion.

Steely Dan, Boss Skaggs, the Eagles, and Michael McDonald will always have a place in my musical jouney. New people who keep my interst are Teddy Swims, Allen Stone, John Splithoff, Khalid, Dennis Lloyd, Goldford, Madison Ryann Ward, Victor Ray and Sons of Zion (Drift Away). I listen on Pandora and have a bunch of different stations. I like Post Malone, but not his generic Country stuff. These new artists don’t disparage women and talk about their own frailties. That thought brings me to XAmbassador’s song Fragile.

Chris Stapleton gets my attention just about every time. I love his Waylon-esque guitar. Well, he can make that guitar create magic.

Allen Stone has Stevie Wonder in all of his sounds, but he doesn’t stick to one style and incorporates so many different inflections that, even though his vocals break a bunch of singing rules, he still makes me happy. Mystery makes me dance. Can’t Explain This Love is so throw-back groovy. His lyrics are often in my head…stuck there. I had Bruno Mars’ Chunky stuck in my head for a long time. The lyrics are an ode to big-butt girls and it makes me smile every time.

I will confess that I punch through songs that don’t catch my attention and probably should give some of them a longer listen. But I will repeat a song that catches my attention until I have learned the lyrics, found the “liner notes” and lyrics online to find out who wrote the song, produced it, played on it and when it was done. Some songs just need to find the right time and place to find an audience.

Even though I worked in Country music for 15 years, I started as a jazz, standards, pop singer. I outgrew most of it, even though my voice is suited to it. The music biz turned me into someone who seeks new music. I get bored with the old stuff and I’ve never been a heavy metal, punk or techno fan. There are exceptions, of course, but give me some new sound, new words of insight, of just pure joy anytime. You’ll notice I don’t really like femail singers lately. First, I’m a tenor/baritone and my range is more narrow than it used to be. Second, the stuff coming out of the music companies is so formulaic and over programmed that it doesn’t hold my attention. And, I’m in opposition to the over-sexualized performances, the costume (or lack of) of these young women. The music is often sub-par and covered up with production. Women are often exploited and barely clad. Girls, start pushing back at that thinking. Beyonce…is this what young girls need to emulate? I think this is one of the reason Taylor Swift draws so many young girls. It’s not embarrassingly crass.

Country music is so predictable I could probably tell you the lyric or music lick before it happens. BORING.A lot of my friends like the genre and can’t understand why I don’t. That genre is about radio ratings, sales and the bean counters who control the programming…I’ll leave that discussion for another day.

I went to a Steep Canyon Rangers concert last year as a guest of my sister-in-law, who wanted to prove to me that I was wrong about Country music. First, they play Blue Gras music, not Country. Secondly, they are consumate musicians and work hard! I bet their practice sessions are amazing. I loved it. Would I like a constant diet of it…nope. I appreciate the musicianship, though. I saw Diane Reeve last year, too. Amazing vocalist, but the Brazilian guitarist had me enthralled. I love tight sounds. It takes years of practice to get to that level. You can’t hide the mistakes in the production.

I’ll be back with more of my thoughts about music. But now I have to listen to group Great Good Fine OK playing Forget You. I’m dancing in my seat.