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 of his guitar and voice awakened something in me that I couldn’t explain. But having heard that song, a path to a life in music and an actively engaged citizenship was begun.

It would take years for that awakening to become a reality. That moment was enhanced and intensified as I, inspired by the music of Gordon Lightfoot, Aretha Franklin, Cat Stevens, Pete Seeger, Stevie Wonder, and countless others, experimented with those myriad influences that stirred the juices of creativity around and around in my body and brain. Murmurs of the spirituals and gospel songs of my youth simmered together with the classical and jazz songs I heard in school as I moved and swayed to the pop/rock classics that filled the airwaves. Together they freed me from what might have been the usual course for a kid of my background. It was a fusion of sound and message that lifted me into the ozone of boundless self-expression. Music, as it so often does, opened new windows of meaning for me and allowed me test my wings in a new atmosphere of artistic freedom. And with joy, my life and career dreams took flight.

And now, so many years removed from that fertile valley of inspiration, I find myself still deeply connected to the central truth of my discovery on that November night…That music heals, transforms and makes change possible.

That knowledge has served me well through years of struggle, challenge, joyful exploration, illness and triumph in the same way that it has fueled movements of social and historic change. And I find myself, with new and renewed vigor, embracing the causes of positive change in old and new ways without fear. And I’m trying everyday to share that light.

“I almost didn’t come here tonight. I’ve been so frustrated, angry and upset by everything in the news. I really didn’t want to leave the house. But when I saw the announcement of this program, I went online and I looked at your Facebook and webpage and what I saw gave me a little bit of hope. Your music spoke to me tonight, and I’m so glad I came.”

If these were the words spoken by just one person over the last few weeks that would be a marvelous thing. But I’ve heard similar statements from person after person in state after state…at intermission and at the end of shows as people go off into the night. I hear it at the end of my solo concerts and at the end of presentations of “Deeper Than the Skin” with Greg Greenway or in my concerts with Scott Ainslie, Kim Harris, Pat Wictor, Magpie, Emma’s Revolution or the many other artists with whom I share the value of song.

We live in a challenging time! Good news in the 24/7 news cycle often feels hard to come by. It’s hard to remember that WE are the good news. If we realize that we still have the ability to open our hearts to honest connections that bind us to each other and affect the shape of our world then the world will change for the better.  If not us, then who?

Whether it’s talking to a stranger on a plane or to the young people we love as we try to help them begin to define their dreams or make sense of what’s happening in the world; or when we take a moment to encourage someone to take an active role in our nation’s direction or volunteer an hour or two at a school, soup kitchen or community center. It’s one of the reasons we register and vote or spend time talking with friends and family to help them to regain their perspective and mental balance.

WE must be the change that we hope to see in the world.

Malcolm X said: “We need more light about each other. For light brings understanding, understanding brings love, love brings patience and patience brings unity.”

So just as my forebears set the example in the past, I now try to add my piece to the puzzle at a time when hope seems distant and faint. Every time I open my mouth to sing or I pick up that guitar, I’m back in my room on 17^th street in Philly, rediscovering the joy, possibility and hope that music can bring.

This is the song in my heart; this is still very much my work in the world. I am happy and fortunate to have many partners in this work… the musicians and artists who have come to know that fame, money and personal glory are not enough reason to build and sustain a healthy grounded life and career.

As Bernice Johnson Reagon founder of “Sweet Honey in the Rock” said’ “Music changes the air!”  Music builds community and heals our hearts.  And blessed be… it can also help us change the world!

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 make cheesesteaks REALLY WELL!

For the family of the 43 year old man whose liver I now claim as my own. We share a bond that is beyond understanding despite not knowing each other.

For all of the very talented friends and musicians who inspire and cause me to remember how powerful music is and can be.

For the Sixers, Eagles and Phillies for teaching me OVER and OVER again that the joy of sport is not ALWAYS in the winning. But now that I get it, WIN!

For all of the sponsors, teachers, parents, music volunteers and festival presenters who allow me the joy of sharing what I do and believe in me enough to have me come to do it.

For the pioneers and unsung heroes of civil and human rights who refused to stand down, run away or cower in the face of danger and tyranny…who made a way outta NO way! We owe you for showing us how it’s done now that we have to do it

For my family and loved ones for loving me through all of the years of  being “somewhere else” on important dates. I’m trying to get that to be less the case.

For all of the children that I encounter who remind me that play, wisdom  and wonder are not defined by age.

For my mother, Helen Harris, for making sure I saw, felt and heard things I didn’t want to see, hear or feel… but now treasure.

For my sister Marlene for not giving up on me when I was sick and for listening to me when it was her turn! Thanks to Peter for hanging in there.

For my teachers, mentors, inspirational leaders and friends who have said the right things and live lives of passion and purpose so I could follow your lead.

For Kim for working hard to show that we meant what we said and sang about though the years and for continuing to work together cooperatively with respect and joy.

For another year of joyful support and love from all of you for hearing and responding to my music, past, present and future. And for helping me to build this amazing community of love.

For all who love in the presence of hate so that hate is not the default in this challenging world. This is not a rehearsal. We are on the road together and we will overcome!

Looking back over the years, it appears that I was born to collaborate! Starting when I was 4 or 5, my mom, my sister Marlene, and I would gather at the piano on a Friday night at home there in Philly, and we’d sing hymns and other songs until bedtime. With the TV turned off and Nana napping in her big chair (periodically waking to smile!) we would take turns and share the verses on songs like  “How Great Thou Art” or “Shall We Gather at the River.”  Occasionally, some show tune from South Pacific, one of the few shows I remember my very religious mom taking us to see in the theater, or a Harry Belafonte song, would find its way into the mix.

It was there that I began to learn how to trade harmonies, as my sister and I began to construct our own arrangements, with lyrics and antics that often earned us a raised eyebrow or a word of rebuke. It was a very happy time and so formative to my later years of singing in church and school choirs. It’s no surprise to me that, with that as background, I have spent a lifetime finding great delight in collaborative musical endeavors. Discover top-tier games with ยูฟ่าเบท and elevate your gaming experience.

For over 40 years, as one half of the duo Kim and Reggie Harris, I’ve been blessed to travel the world singing songs: original, traditional, and borrowed. It’s been an effort to add meaning, context, joy, and substance to the community of song that exists… sharing the stories of reality and the dreams of our human connection along with reflections on the challenges that we face.

In that time, I’ve had the opportunity to explore my background, my motivations, my voice, and my being as well as the many critical aspects of the art of listening and responding to others. I’ve led and I’ve followed. I’ve given and taken clues. And I’ve shared in the journey of ‘risk taking’… walking that fine line of self exploration and group commitment that allows one to go beyond the comfort zones of what is known and unknown in both musical and life experience to reach new vistas.

Truthfully, I will admit that, every now and again, there have been some train wrecks of a song or two! But it’s been a rich education and also a whole universe of fun. Discover top-tier games with พบกับเกมชั้นนำของ ยูฟ่าเบท and elevate your gaming experience. And the list of amazing artists who’ve become friends and mentors along the way simply boggles my mind. I’m filled to overflowing with gratitude and deep great appreciation for the range of personalities and dream-makers whose passions and skills have contributed so much to my worldview.

A year ago, when Kim and I made a decision to shift our personal and career paths, I embarked on the new phase of this journey as a solo artist. That shift has launched a powerful new landscape of possibility and excitement as I find that my years of collaboration have both enhanced and limited my freedom to soar and grow. This year of touring has brought some vibrant changes in my work and musical life.  Some fans have said, “Wow. I didn’t even know you had THAT voice!” I smile.  I’m having a new kind of fun.”

So, as I move forward with a new vocal freedom and a renewed passion for guitar expression, I’ve also added some focused collaborations with some trusted friends to the reduced partnership opportunities with Kim. It’s a work in progress that is yielding some very cool results and uncovering some astounding skills.

I seek a different balance. And it’s a journey I will share here in writing, on stage, and in recordings as I redefine the lines of a mission I started years ago around that upright piano. And to quote my friend Greg Greenway, “It’s a mighty long way, from there to here.” But it’s a song I can sing with joy!

Greetings and Peace, Good People!

As many of you know, I have been part of the UU Living Legacy Project as Music Educator and a board member, for the last 6 years of so. My activity with LLP has provided me with some of the most incredible and heartrending challenges of my life. The experiences along the way have also birthed some of my most joyful moments as well, as I have been more intimately linked to the history and to the people who have made and, in some cases, are still making our movement for freedom justice powerful and possible. <www.UULivinglegacy.org>

In my role for LLP, I have helped to lead pilgrimages, as song leader and educator, to a bevy of civil rights sites in AL, MS and TN.  On those journeys, we travel together on a bus, stopping 5 or 6 places every day, to visit the museums, community centers, homes and other sites of the movement. Each day, we interact with residents, civil rights veterans and leaders in these communities, that were (and, in many cases, still are) vibrant agents of action in the cause of justice and freedom.

We often hear the stories that you don’t read in books or learn in school. And we sing, eat and share our own stories as we slowly come to know and appreciate the human side of this national narrative.

With my colleagues, I’ve helped plan and facilitate events like the “Marching in the Arc of Justice” conference, which brought together about 600 people from around the country and culminated with 70,000 of us walking together across the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, AL, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday.” In that and other outreach efforts, we work to connect both young and not so young to the truth of the past, the present and to plant the seeds of future endeavors of civil and human rights activity. It’s an amazing resource for hope and change.

I thank all of you who have followed these journeys by reading my trip posts and commenting on my photographic efforts to capture, here on Facebook and beyond, what is best seen, heard and felt in person. I have also shared many of these stories with audiences of every age and background in my concerts here and around the world.

It remains one of my deepest and most joyful blessings to be involved in this work. And yet, there is another side to this work, of which many of you are also aware. That would be my embrace of new relationships with my White cousins in the Wickham family. (the family that both owned and provides one half of my ancestry) This growing shared personal roots journey, over time, has enriched us all. I am so honored that my Wickham family lineage is now an integral part of my embrace of heritage and continues to fuel my mission in music and in life.

As we continue together to celebrate our ongoing conversation and relationship as slave/master descendants, we are discovering, anew, that injustice, history, enforced emotional distance and pain can be overcome. It has made the work that I do in schools, concert halls, festivals, centers of faith and with community organization even more fulfilling. As I open myself to further bridge-building work, I inherently find out more about myself and my own need for healing.

So now, as I take on new and exciting projects in the rest of 2017 and beyond, here is one of the next offerings on the horizon.

From Oct. 21st – 28th, a collaborative pilgrimage between the UU Living Legacy Project and an amazing group called “Coming to The Table”, will go forward and is open to the public. CTTT is an organization dedicated to providing leadership, resources and a supportive environment for all who wish to acknowledge and heal the wounds from racism rooted in the United States’ history of slavery.”

This journey could not be happening at a more critical time in America history! It’s an effort to come to terms with the frustration and the incredible longing for hope that I hear all across our land. It engages the desire that we can and must be a part of the change we seek. This is justice in action.

So, here’s the link that will help YOU can be a link. Check out the info…clear the space…get on the bus and take your place!

We’ll ride, sing, talk, laugh, cry and eat together and create new ways to turn the division and acrimony, so rampant nationwide, into something more useful and lasting. We must learn again, as those civil rights heroes would say, to “make a way outta no way!”  To know that there is no try… there is only DO and NOT DO.

Come get on the bus. I’m looking forward to singing with you.

2017 CTTT Racial Justice Pilgrimage – Living Legacy Project
www.uulivinglegacy.org/2017-cttt-civil-rights-pilgrimage.html

 Merry Christmas to All… Peace on Earth and goodwill to those we like?  Or, something like that?

Well, another year of holiday festivities is underway and, in the spirit of the season, we’ve got lights, trees and wonder… all going 24/7, as find ourselves deep into exclamations of joy, celebratory eating,  gift exchange and gift return. Christmas fever… it’s ON!

Many of us have been decking the halls for days and days and, quite frankly, we may be in need of a little reflective downtime.

Yes, tis indeed the season to be jolly.

At least it is for those of us who exist in the category of “ones for whom this season mostly fits the paradigm.”  For the many of us who manage to handle all of the various challenges that the Christmas season, in all of its pomp and commerce oriented glory, sets on our societal tables, we either exult, suffer through  or find our way with luck and good cheer to New Years Eve, where we can make the resolution to do it much better next year.

It would be far too easy to simply comment on the disparity of connection between Christmas “the event we SAY we are celebrating”, and the practices that come due when we hear those bells jingling so merrily at every mall and shopping center around he nation.  It does, after all mean jobs and a fresh wave of employment from Black Friday till the end of December.

And I certainly will not be the first or the last to call attention to the issue of how closely this resembles the man whose name we claim to hold at the center of the celebration.

This year, almost more than any other, it seems to be more of a challenge to hear and see how the angels song of peace and joy is resonating in the populace. Love is not the only thing in the air.

I noticed recently, influenced perhaps by the election of Donald Trump as our next president, that one brand of Christians, notably a great many conservatives and more than a few who identify as evangelicals, have taken to celebrating a new found joy of being able to say, “Merry Christmas”, as opposed to the phrase “Happy Holidays”  or “Seasons Greetings”. The freedom they feel seems to be focused on the joyful fact that they are now about relieving themselves of the necessity to spend time and effort having to think about the fact that everyone in America is not “who they are.”

And in truth, it must be said that, as with other religions and faith traditions, all Christians  are not of the same stripe, opinion or worldview.)

Without getting into a lengthy diatribe about the lack of inclusiveness, the fault-lines of scarcity of thoughtful engagement or  the miss guided anger over “PC,” inherent in that thinking (as if, having to consider the fact that we live in a diverse society of religions and backgrounds, I will point out that this victim perspective of modern day Christians, in America, tires me greatly.  I even had one visitor to my Facebook page tell me that having to say “Happy Holidays” robbed him of the joy of his Christian heritage. Really? I find myself wondering how such a shallow faith have any joy at all? That you actually have to consider the feelings of others in the celebration of the birth of one who is famous for having come to love, heal the sick, liberate the captive and set people free?

In this time, I find myself wanting  to reflect that, unlike so many of  what I call “Christians without compassion,”  Jesus set a high standard for inclusiveness and for politically being on the side of the oppressed and the underclass in his society. I think that we would be wise to follow that example as well as His demonstrated ability to consider “the other”  in his daily life, more fully in ours.

This morning I saw an article in the Huffington Post and it made me smile. Obviously, Jesus did not identify himself as a political operative. But the views expressed in his life and the words attributed to him, are hard to ignore.

Jesus, by his very example, was indeed, a socialist, in the sense that he was working for and concerned about the good of all.  He was into sharing and collaboration (a quality that our Congress would be wise to adopt) and he certainly made a point of connecting with people of different backgrounds as he negotiated his mission on earth.  As I listen to the rhetorical gobbledegoop and endless prosperity based messages from so many leaders and followers who describe themselves as “part of God’s family, it’s not hard to see that this a heavily overlooked, ignored and mostly unmentioned fact that goes unacknowledged in circles that praise, repeat and in my opinion, overuse and commodify Jesus’ name.

Not only that, but Jesus was a vigorous opponent of prejudice, injustice, race and religious hatred, a champion of the poor and an outspoken public activist. (He spoke truth to power with frequency!) That being the case, guess who ought to be speaking out against those very same issues now?
I attended a conference, some years ago, where a very wise and articulate speaker (I wish I remembered his name) said “If everybody who calls out the name of Jesus and who says they are  “a Christian” REALLY took his words and actions and lived them out, the world would be a VERY different place.”
Sadly, too many followers are “Christians in Name Only!”

Oh and, yeah, as an after-thought, his actions and words got him killed! Apparently, people in power prefer to stay there.

Jesus was a wise and wondrous teacher. And perhaps, with each passing year, we need to use this holiday to review what the man at the center of the celebration was all about and really work at passing out the peace!

Merry Christmas!