Dear Music Family, Really? Has it really been 9 years? I still remember the conversation that brought me to the Living Legacy Pilgrimage bus (LLP) that first time in 2010. My friend Rev. Hope Johnson and her sister Janice Marie Johnson had just returned from having an incredible experience on a civil rights journey through […]
Dear Music Family, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but my last few newsletters have all followed a theme. The stories and pictures that I’ve shared with you have been framing the various aspects of the work that I do as musician, storyteller, and cultural ambassador. I started by telling you about the beginnings of […]
May/June News 2019 “Are these stories true?” The question came from a fourth grader who was seated at a desk at the back of the classroom. It was inspired by an age-appropriate but honest description of life in slavery. It’s a question that I’ve heard many many times, and as always, I smiled, and then […]
Dear Music Family, In an interview last week, a reporter asked me a question that I am often called to answer. “How do you describe who you are? Do people know you as a folk musician? As singer-songwriter? An educator? Or what?” It’s a question that I’ve been forced to answer many times over these […]
Dear Friends and Music Family! It’s what I seem to love to do… so I looked it up! Collaboration: the process of two or more people or organizations working together to complete a task or achieve a goal. I’ve spent most of my life working in collaboration. It started in childhood, living with my grandmother, my […]
Greetings Good People! Here we are in Thanksgiving mode” again! It’s that time of year we set aside to focus on gratitude, self-reflection, and how the blessings of the last year might have escaped our notice. And given the pace of our lives in this 24/7 reality based whirlwind, it can be a good thing to […]
In 1969, somewhere around the middle of November, I heard James Taylor’s song ‘Fire and Rain’ on a late night WIBG radio program called “Americana Panorama”. It was a seminal moment for me, an eclectic black kid living in North Philly, who was going to a mostly white high school across town. The strains […]
I just took the opportunity to watch and listen to The Most Reverend Michael Curry, the first African-American Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, preach his righteous butt off at the occasion of the royal wedding yesterday. Bishop Curry, in 13 minutes of eloquence and spirit, laid out the message of what the power of […]
On this Thanksgiving morning, I wake and give thanks: For all who have not lost hope in a world that often makes the effort of keeping it alive so very difficult. For cheesesteaks and the many places that make them… really well! For no longer living in a place ALL the time with places that […]
Hi Friends and Music Family! I’m writing this to you from high in Canadian airspace. Now some say that musicians are high all the time, but we don’t need to go there. I’m making my way back from Calgary, AB where I was performing this weekend with my buds Greg Greenway and Joe Jencks. We […]