For the last two years, I have posted a Thanksgiving playlist of songs for this increasingly overlooked holiday. Since the Christmas shopping season starts so early, Thanksgiving tends to get merged in with Christmas, a brief (but welcome) interlude in the buying frenzy. Maybe this year, with less buying going on, perhaps we can dwell more on a day dedicated to giving thanks and, perhaps, to the One who is due our thanks.

These songs don't all have Thanksgiving as a theme, because what I treasure about the day is also the gathering at home, or maybe the longing for home, or (sadly) in some cases the trials of being home. Like every holiday, its mention also brings a certain remembrance of childhood celebrations of the day. So, that too is reflected in some of my choices. In the end, it is a subjective list, of course, and yet I hope you will enjoy the music and reflect on what light it sheds on this Thanksgiving Day.

I've recorded and posted below two MP3 files, each with eight or nine songs. You won't be able to stream these, as they will timeout before they finish (a function of my blog provider). I suggest right-clicking on each one (where it says "Side One" and "Side Two") and saving it to your desktop. Each will take 3-4 minutes to download. Once you have done that, you can then click on the desktop icon and listen to the songs on your player. Enjoy!

Side One

1.  In the Bounty of the Lord, by Claire Holly.  A gospel bluegrass number that celebrates what God gives us.  The style is reminiscent of music I listened to growing up, as I find it reminds me of those Friday nights when my father's friends would come over and play music and drink black coffee until after midnight.

2. Thanksgiving Day, by Ray Davies.  Kinks front-man Davies can claim the only legitimate song about Thanksgiving!  He eschews his usual sardonic wit and writes a warm tune here, and the most rocking thing you'll hear on this playlist.

3.  Thank You, by Jan Krist.  It wouldn't be Thanksgiving without saying "thank you," and Jan manages to lace the thanks with enough melancholy and angst to keep it real.  She's a good friend, and hearing her music brings many memories.

4.  Gratitude, by Peter Himmelman.  "I'm glad that I can see the brown eyes of my daughter. . . . Forgive me if I lost a sense of gratitude."  Himmelman, an orthodox Jew, knows Who to thank.  His song is a confession of how we take things for granted and forget to be thankful to our Creator.

5. Be Thou My Vision, by Van Morrison.  It wouldn't be Thanksgiving without a hymn, and this is likely my favorite, with a very Celtic delivery by Van.

6.  Covert War, by David Wilcox.  Wow.  If you had a family like this, you wouldn't want to go home for Thanksgiving.  Fireworks at the Thanksgiving meal!  Sad, but real.

7. Come Thou Fount/ Grain By Grain, by Matt Auten.  Gorgeous hymn, and a reminder that God is the fount of every blessing.

8. A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, by George Winston.  Watching Charlie Brown is a part of every holiday.  Besides, it's a bit of a pick-me-up.

Side Two

19. Wanderer's Song, by Brooks Williams.  One of my favorites by Brooks, this song is about how all roads lead home.

10. River Where Mercy Flows, by Julie Miller.  I love Julie's songs, and the tenderness and fragility of her voice is disarming.  Thank God for His mercy.

11. What Wondrous Love, by Jars of Clay.  Another hymn favorite.  Thank God for his wondrous love.

12. Thanksgiving Song, by Mary Chapin Carpenter. New to the playlist this year, this original song is from Carpenter's recently released Christmas album. "Grateful for each hand we hold, around this table. . . ."

13. America, by Simon and Garfunkel. As my Uganda friend reminds me, Thanksgiving is a uniquely American holiday, and this is a song about America, and a nostalgic reminder of another time. This is the unique place I'm thankful for.

14. Somewhere Over the Rainbow, by The Innocence Mission. It seems like The Wizard of Oz used to come on sometime around the holidays every year as I was growing up. Thus, I identify it with home. It has a lullaby quality to it also, as sung by Karen Peris.

15. The Water is Wide, by Karla Bonoff. What a great song! This traditional tune was arranged and sung by Bonoff with some guitar and vocals by James Taylor late in the song. It's a song about trying to get home.

16. We Will Dance Someday, by Brooks Williams. A great upbeat song of hope about the Home we will enjoy someday. That hope makes me thankful.

17. Homecoming, by Jerry Reed Smith.  An instrumental coda which reminds us, I think, of where our real Home is, where it will be Thanksgiving all the time.

“If you follow marketing trends, you’ve probably been hearing a lot about “tribes” lately. It’s the idea that our culture is a collection of groups with a shared identity, mission or leader. Seems obvious enough. We’ve all seen Braveheart and have a pretty good idea of what a tribe is. But what does it mean for an artist in the 21st century? I think it provides one model for how an artist can have the freedom to create their art and make a living doing it.”  (Joe, at Noisetrade 101)

I don’t intend to pick on Noisetrade, or Joe, or anyone else who is the business of trying to support themselves as artists.  I’m well familiar with niche marketing, or even tribe marketing.  Find your tribe.  Sell to it.  Develop a loyal following.  Most artists will do well to follow this as a model for trying to get gigs and sell music.  But let’s face it --- as a model for the good society, for a culture built around shared values, it’s detrimental.  To the extent it builds a following, it does so around consumption, around music, and around a person.  That model would seem to contribute to the further balkanization of society, because tribes built around something as innocuous as music (in terms of bringing about societal collapse) may also begin to look alike, think alike, and choose to associate with other tribe members.  It’s one step from that to dissing other tribe members and then, at some point, really losing the ability to appreciate and converse with one another.  This is not healthy!

Music should be a bridge across “tribes,” something that brings people of different political and social views, of different lifestyles and looks, and of different racial and social classes together.  Finding something in common, if only in music, can lead to conversation, and conversation can lead to understanding, and understanding might just lead to some consensus about what is true, good, and beautiful, about what a good society ought to look like.  Sometimes I get the sense that no one is much interested in that anymore.  It’s more about who looks like me, thinks like me, and (well) buys like me.

In the end, it’s not my tribe that matters.   The Apostle Paul said that we are not to seek our own good, but the good of our neighbor (1 Cor. 10:24), and the admonition to do good extends to everyone, not just our immediate neighbor, not just our tribe (Gal. 6:10).  Rather than reach our tribe with music, why not reach out to a larger group?  Some artists do this quite effectively.  For example, I went to a Josh Groban concert with my wife.  I saw the requisite swooning women, of course, but I also saw men and women of every age group --- all attracted by his artistry and a music that really transcended the boundaries of language, religion, age, race, and preference.  I don’t prefer him, but I came away with a great appreciation of his music and his artistry, and his ability to reach across tribes.  Frankly, that should be not just the goal of the artist but of us all.

There are not many better concert experiences than seeing a performance at the Hollywood Bowl.  Last night my son and I went with friends to see Brian Wilson live at the Bowl, backed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and followed by a tremendous fireworks display.  A real treat was that the Philharmonic came on first (right after a stirring rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner”) and played three works chosen by Brian --- Mozart, Bach, and Gershwin numbers --- before ceding the stage to Wilson and his great band.  The acoustics in the Bowl are tremendous, and even the nosebleed seats have a decent view and good sound as, for the most part, the seating moves from box seats on a gradual slope to a steeply sloped rise up the mountain.  We were about half way back, dead center, with a tremendous view.

Behind us a full moon rose over the mountain.  To the right of the stage, on an adjoining hill, a white illuminated cross was just a great reminder of a Creator who gave us such a beautiful natural environment and gifted us with music and the ingenuity to design such a beautiful place.  And the fireworks display, which was on and over the top of the acoustic shell of the stage, was the best I’ve seen.  During “Surfin’ Safari,” a classic Beach Boys tune, they even lit up a “woody” (one of those 60’s station wagons with wood paneled doors) with surf boards on top.  No humidity and cool temperatures helped make it a comfortable evening as well.

Brian raced through a series of classic Beach Boys songs, mostly familiar to the general population (like “Surfer Girl,” “Fun, Fun, Fun,” and “Do You Want to Dance”), but led off and closed with songs from his most recent album, which were well received.  Nevertheless, I had the sense that this was less concert than social event for many people.  Down below us, in the box seats, people were dining with white tablecloths, four course meals, sipping wine, and obviously dressed for the occasion.  The annoyance to me was the amount of talking during the performance.  It sometimes distracted me from hearing the music.

But all in all, it was a good evening.  I love the music, and while Brian, at 66, is challenged by performing, it is an inspiration to me that he continues to write music, perform, and record after all that he has been through.  He is awkward at times, cannot hit those high falsetto notes (now assigned to Jeffrey Foskett), and makes hand motions during songs that are a bit spastic --- and yet he still does it.  He is the voice of Southern California, a timeless sound.

In the last song of the evening, a new one called “Southern California,” he waxes sentimental about “singing with my brothers/ In harmony, supporting one another.”  He’s the last brother alive, and he’s said many times how much he misses them.  And then both his mother and father are dead as well.  When he sings “All these people make me feel so alone,” I can imagine the sadness that haunts him. 

I saw him after the concert (about the fifth time I have done so).  He’s aging, but he can still flash a smile and say hello for the fans.  As long as Brian Wilson sings, the California dream is alive. What a night.

Brian Wilson is an inspiration.  The genius writer, arranger, and producer of The Beach Boys’ early hits retired to his studio in 1965, petrified of appearing before audiences.  After the masterpiece of Pet Sounds, he launched into a more ambitious project, Smile, which, when rejected by the other Beach Boys as too weird and written off by his label, sent him into a downward spiral that, except for short-lived “comebacks,” was where he stayed for three decades.  Three decades!  That’s a long, long, sad story, but the inspiration is that Brain did in fact re-emerge!  In the late Nineties he married Melinda Ledbetter, adopted two children, and in 1998 released a well-received solo album, Imagination.  Then he performed Pet Sounds. . . live.  Then he toured.  Then he finished the legendary, unreleased Smile album, performed it live, and then re-recorded it for release.  It’s still weird --- and amazing.  Two solo albums followed, both well-received, but neither came close to tapping the genius of Pet Sounds or Smile.  Until now, that is.

That Lucky Old Sun, released on September 2nd, is a suite of songs which are a kind of biography of place, Southern California, and of the artist himself.  While nothing Brian could do will ever live up to the larger than life Smile, this album really does come close.  And in some ways it’s better, in that lyrically it’s much more accessible.  (If you want to test this, please interpret the lyrics of Smile’s “Heroes and Villains” for me.)  It’s personal, nostalgic, and sentimental, and it’s brimming with great hooks, harmony, and a little quirkiness. . . and it’s moving.

It’s a travel map to the place that grew up around Brian Wilson.  Venice Beach.  City of Angels.  “Blue pacific, as azure as the sky.”  Olvera Street.  Hollywood.  The Capital Records Tower.  Surfin’.  And the sun. . . that “lucky old sun,” a song that kicks off the record and reprises several time throughout, a song that sets the tone of the album, that gives you the sense that L.A. really can be loved by someone who has lived there 66 years.  There’s a wonderful variety to the tempo of the songs, and even a musical complexity.  I can forgive Brian the spoken narratives, little observations on the people and places of L.A., all written by Van Dyke Parks.  They may be unnecessary but yet don’t detract from a great record.

As great as this slice of Southern California is, the most poignant parts of the record are the songs that are more autobiographical in nature.  Taken together, you are left with a sense that Brian is a man who was lost but has rediscovered his home.  In “Oxygen to the Brain,” he confesses “I cried a million tears/ I wasted a lot of years/ Life was so dead, life was so dead,” and later, “How could I have got so low/ I’m embarrassed to tell you so/ I laid around this old place/ I hardly even washed my face.”  But then he says “I’m filling up my lungs again/ And breathing in life.”

In a beautifully moving song, “Midnight’s Another Day,” he says “Lost my way/ The sun grew dim/ Stepped over grace, and stood in sin,” and that “All these voices, all these memories,/ made me feel like stone/ All these people made me feel so alone/ Lost in the dark, no shades of gray/ Until I found midnight’s another day.”  And yet the best moment comes in a rocking song, “Going Home,” that is really a celebration of his coming home to grace, his finding piece of mind.  The bridge in the song is beautiful harmonically and lyrically: “At 25 I turned out the light/ Cause I couldn’t handle the glare in my tired eyes/ But now I’m back, drawing shades of kind blue skies.”  But the final song, “Southern California,” while sentimental, is a beautiful reflection on his life, where he remembers “singing with my brothers” (both are now dead), driving down the Pacific Coast Highway, the sun, the ocean, pretty girls, music, and surfing (even though Brian never surfed).  It’s a fitting ending to a story and place that seems a little part of all of us.

This is the best new work from Brian Wilson in years.  He may not have the voice he once did, but he still has genius, and he still gets up there and sings.  Maybe all he needed was a little love and mercy, a place to come home to.  HIghly recommended, particularly the CD/DVD package.  (Note also that the Best Buy version of the CD includes three bonus tracks.)

I first met Canadian singer-songwriter Rick Unruh at the annual Cornerstone Music Festival, or maybe the Folk Alliance Convention in Memphis, Tennessee, circa 1999, but frankly, I have forgotten the exact place.  Rick is quiet-spoken and unassuming, as are many Canadians it seems.  In fact, my Silent Planet Records partner, Tony Shore, used to joke that Rick was so nice that we could tell him we’d put his record out, do nothing for him, and pay him nothing, and he’d say “no problem.”  (Well, come to think of it, that’s not far from reality for most record companies!)  Even Rick’s songs have a subtle way of sneaking up on you, powerfully understated in their approach.

In this episode of Wide Angle Radio, that well-intended but financially underwhelming project of so many years ago, John Fischer interviews Rick in an episode entitled “The Vulnerability of the Artist.”  (Funny, no one ever talks about the vulnerability of the record label or artist manager.  Can you imagine why?)  The acoustic music featured on Wide Angle Radio tends to manifest just that --- vulnerability --- in being stripped down (sometimes, painfully so to my ears today), honest, and often personal.  Listen to any song by Julie Miller, who is also featured on this episode, and you’ll sense the vulnerability immediately.  Sometimes it’s almost too much.  And yet with Rick’s music joy and hope tend to percolate up to the surface time and again.  And he’s just as intelligent and articulate and (yes) nice in his interview.  So, please check out this episode of Wide Angle Radio here.

Even if you’re not a huge fan of rap or hip-hop music, it’s likely you’ll be blown away by the music and testimony of Emmanuel Jal.  One of the lost boys of Sudan, an AK-47 wielding child soldier, Jal was rescued from horrific circumstances by aid worker Emma McCune, taken to Kenya, and after McCune died in a tragic auto accident, eventually ended up in London.  He’s a young man of extraordinary faith who feels called to tell his story in music --- rap music no less.  As he says in the album’s title track, “I believe I’ve survived for a reason/ To tell my story, to touch lives.”

The testimony he gives is captivating, yet not all of it makes for easy listening.  For example, in “Forced to Sin” he speaks of the loss of his friend Lual, and of being so hungry he was tempted to (but did not succumb to) cannibalism.  In another song, “50 Cent,” he critiques the lifestyle of the popular rap singer in language appropriate for the context but difficult to play around young children.  In “Vagina,” he likens the continent of Africa to a repeatedly raped woman --- not just by developed nations by by their own native, Big Man leaders.  Strong imagery, strong message.

But these are the raw songs.  There are also songs of pure joy and praise, of claiming the promises and protection of God in all circumstances.  One of my favorite, “Many Rivers to Cross,” is a celebration of God’s protection and of the need to persevere in the face of hardship.  “Emma McCune” is a tribute to the woman who saved his life.  “Shadow of Death” is as you might expect --- a paraphrase of Psalm 23.

It wasn’t Emma McCune who led Jal to faith.  That faith came from his mother, but he was discipled by Josephine Mumo, a woman who led a home for street kids in Nairobi.  Mumo  not only fed and housed Jal, but she took him to church where he discovered the transforming power of God’s love and music --- gospel music.

Jal has quite a platform for his testimony.  His story is told in a documentary that premiered at the 2008 Berlin International Film Festival, and an autobiography is due out later this year.  But he seems unfazed by the trappings of success, focused on his singular calling to tell the world about Sudan and Africa, to tell his story.

Read more about Emmanuel Jal here.  Buy his record, Warchild, here.  Listen and he’ll get under your skin.  [Use some discretion in playing the album around children, however.]

When I first discovered Claire Holley in 1999, it was because I was smitten with her then second album, Sanctuary, a tribute to old-time music.  The traditional hymns and other songs, as well as the originals, hearkened back to my life as a child, sitting at the feet of my father and friends on Friday nights, playing just such music until the wee hours of morning enlivened by cup after cup of black coffee.  It conjured up another time, another place, as well it might have for Claire Holley, as she was inspired to do the album by her own father.

Claire's newest recording, Hush, is not like Sanctuary, not filled with hymns or an old-time sound, and yet it still reminds me of those simple, sweet songs and arrangements.  Part of the album has the sound of lullabies, not surprising in that Claire is now a mother.  And yet that's not all of it.  The songs on the record, uniformly well-crafted, are presented in an understated and yet powerful way, testifying not to deep angst or political headlines but to normal, everyday life  ---- missing someone you love ("Visit Me"), leaving someone you love ("Leaving This Town"), a nighttime walk under the moon ("Under the Moon"), a wedding ("Wedding Day"), or the several songs that are no doubt inspired by her child, from shooing away monsters ("Go Away Now") to bath time ("Another Day") to bedtime ("Say Goodnight").  They're not lyrics to knock you over. . . and yet they do, simply by their testimony to the beauty of the ordinary times and events of life.

Musically, the album maintains a low-key acoustic feel, and there is a good variety in tempo, sufficient to keep the record interesting. My favorite tracks are "Visit Me" which, with the pedal steel, gives off a wistful sense of longing, much like Gram Parson's classic "Hickory Wind," and the feel-good vibe of "Leaving This Town."  But really, I like it all.  It may not be Sanctuary, but there's more Claire Holley in Hush, and it's all good.

At long last, Dennis Wilson's long out of print solo recording, Pacific Ocean Blue, will be released by Sony in a two-disc legacy edition on June 17th.  I have long thought Dennis, brother to Beach Boy Brian Wilson, was second only to Brian in talent, and it shows on this disc.  The first disc appears to have four unreleased tracks, and the second a full 17 additional tracks, a treasure trove for collectors.  It appears that these bonus tracks are in part drawn from Dennis's uncompleted and unreleased Bamboo project, some rumored to be collaborations with brother Brian.  Others could be collaborations with his then Fleetwood Mac girlfriend Christine McVie.  Sadly, Bamboo was never completed due to Dennis's many personal problems.  He died in 1983 in a drowning accident and whatever genius he possessed was lost.  You can find all you ever wanted to know about Dennis on Dan Addington's website.  And much, more more on the reissue (along with quotes from the producers, video clips, and reviews (uniformly good) here.

The heyday of the concept album is long past, and I miss it greatly.  In the late Sixties and early Seventies, such themed albums were all the rage, artists working from a large palette, able to choose and sequence their songs and have input into cover design and liner notes, something unheard of in the music business before that time. 

It's likely that the first person to be given such artistic control was a young twenty-something Brian Wilson, who used it to full effect on 1966's Pet Sounds, selecting songs, commanding a studio full of the best L.A. session musicians, and overseeing the entire concept of the record.  It isn't that such concept albums did not persist after the demise of vinyl, but it became more difficult to pull off.  Compact discs offered less room for artistic choice.  But the whole idea of the album is falling by the wayside with digital music.  Sure, there may still be album releases, but many of these albums are no more than collections of songs, musicians well aware that the individual song is all that matters, that consumers will generally download a song that "pops" for them in the first 30 seconds, that patient listening to a whole planned sequence of songs, whether organized around a theme or simply organized for effect and mood, is not rewarded.  What's happening is a dumming down of artistic expression, a shrinking palette, and a focus on a song rather than a body of work.

This concept of an album as a work of art is becoming so foreign to some that it helps to turn back the clock and use an example, and I choose one of my favorite concept albums, The Kinks' 1969 release of Arthur, or The Decline and Fall of the British Empire.  Arthur is the kind of album that folks who download might zip through, listening to a minute or two of each song, and then downloading a couple that are immediately memorable, like "Victoria," or "Australia," or the beautiful "Shangri-La," and yet completely miss the story told in the other songs or the narrative that streams throughout.

Arthur was a collaboration between Kinks frontman Ray Davies and novelist and playwright Juliana Mitchell, a story and soundtrack of sorts originally planned as a TV musical drama --- only the budget was pulled.  It tells the story of a working class man's love of and then disillusionment with Britain, his flight to Australia, and his ultimate regrets at a life of innocence lost.  In the end,  Arthur's questions about life are best put by Mitchell as "What's it all about then?  Is this what I've lived for (a suburban home, car, job)?  It's been a good life, hasn't it?  Well, hasn't it?"  You're left with that gnawing sense that there must be more, that Arthur somehow missed the point of life, the real meaning.

The songs tell a cohesive story.  "Victoria" kicks off the album in a rocking way, Arthur paying tribute to the "land that I love," the "land of hope and gloria/ Land of my Victoria."  In "Yes Sir, No Sir," he goes to war, ready to do his duty, and yet despite his sacrifice realizes that he can never rise above his class, will always be on the outside: "So you think you've got ambition/ Stop your dreaming and your idle wishing/ You're outside and their ain't no admission/ To our play."  Though Arthur survives, many others don't, the mother in "Some Mother's Son" waiting for a son "who ain't coming home today."  And yet it's not all dark, "Drivin'" providing a light note, with Arthur packing the boys in the car for a drive, telling then to "Drop all your work/ Leave it all behind/ Forget all your problems/ And get in my car/ And take a drive with me."

"Australia," which almost turns psychedelic at the end, is a rocking end to the first side, sounding like a promo for utopia, promising that "everyone walks around with a perpetual smile on their face in Australia," a place where "you get what you work for" and there's "no class distinction" and "we'll surf like they do in the U.S.A."  Flip the album and you realize that Australia is no "Shangri-La," that when you've got what you thought you needed to be happy, you're really "too scared to think about how insecure you are/ Life ain't so happy in your little Shangri-la, Shangri-la."  Lurking underneath the upbeat musical tone of the song is a fair amount of angst, of latent anger at how life's turned out.

Finally, an old, gray-haired Arthur looks back on his life with some nostalgia and regret, as in "Young and Innocent Days," saying: "I see the lines across your face/ Time has gone and nothing ever can replace/ Those great, so great/ Young and innocent days."  The title cut brings a summary conclusion to the story:

Arthur was born just a plain simple man
In a plain simple working class position
Though the world was hard and its ways were set
He was young and he had so much ambition

All the way he was overtaken
By the people who make the big decisions
But he tried and he tried for a better life
And a way to improve his own condition
 
Arthur we like you and want to help you
Somebody loves you don't you know it
How is your life and your Shangri-la
And your long lost land of Hallelujah
And your hope and glory has passed you by
Can't you see what the world is doing to ya

And now we see your children
Sailing off in the setting sun
To a new horizon
Where there's plenty for everyone
Arthur, could be
That the world was wrong

Empire, status, position --- could it be that the world was wrong?  The album asks a great question, planting the truth that there must be something more to life.  It was a question asked a lot in the Sixties, but it's every bit as relevant now.  A great song can ask this question.  But a great album does it far better.  It puts a story in your head that's difficult to shake off.

Davies uses music well in the telling of the story, letting the pace of the song, the temp0, and the mood fit the lyric.  Also (and you would never know this from the compact disc), each side of the album begins and ends with a strong, memorable song, the last song on Side One, "Australia," setting the stage for Side Two, where we find that "Shangri-La" is not what it was cracked up to be.  The album begins strongly with the Arthur of youthful innocence, believing in Britain ("Victoria"), and ends with the title cut, "Arthur,' him wondering if he missed something along the way.  There's something in that pause, that getting up to turn the record, that worked well as an artistic device.  Finally, listening, I'm holding a large gatefold album in my hands, perusing the art, poring over lyrics, and asking myself the question "what am I living for?"  That's a great piece of art: it puts me in the story.  Folks, one song just can't as easily do that.  One song promises but doesn't quite endure.

So that's another reason I like the album, particularly the concept album.  You should try it while it's still possible.  Maybe start with Arthur.

Despite my predisposition for vinyl and aversion to a digital only music consumption, I've not yet been labeled a Luddite.  In my last post on the subject, I lamented the passing of vinyl, and yet I know that we cannot go back, that we live in a digital age.  I am remembering for two reasons: first, I want to know what it is I have lost and whether and to what extent it matters; and, second, if I have lost something that is important, I would like to consider how to recapture some of that in a digital age.  As a Christian, I look at remembering not as a wallowing in nostalgia, but as a way of meeting the future, of preserving the good we may lose if we don't take care to translate it into the present.  I do not want to be unaware of a cultural shift that negatively transforms the way I think and live.

I also made the audacious claim in my last post that vinyl was more biblical.  I did that because there is something about that whole experience that is more satisfying and seems to better embody values consistent with Scripture.  Whether you read Neil Postman's Technopoly or Jaques Ellul's Technology, the lesson is that any technological change has not only positive but negative consequences, yet they don't always cancel each other out.  Sometimes change is much, much better (for example, there is absolutely nothing important that was lost with the passing of the 8-track tape), and sometimes the consequences are more negative than positive.  I think the latter holds true with the move from physical media to digital media.  What we lost is greater than what we gained.

So exactly what is it that we lost, or stand to lose, and how do we translate these values into a digital age?  I can think of four areas of loss and opportunity:

• Permanence.  God is not opposed to change, and yet Scripture gives priority to the permanent, to things that do not change.  The ease with which we buy and sell in a consumer era breeds contempt for things that endure.  Something I can have immediately and relatively cheaply (like an ITunes download) is cheapened, less important, more easily dispensed with.  When I used to shop for LPs in stores, the delayed gratification and anticipation fostered a more enduring appreciation.  I waited to find it, to buy it, and finally to listen to it --- all the time thinking about it, anticipating it, and, after buying it, reading it and holding it until I could get it home to actually play it.
• Respect.  Because I cannot easily skip tracks that don't immediately connect with me, I listened through an album, first one side, then the other.  I appreciated the sequencing of songs, the lyrics, the quality of production.  Repeated listenings built appreciation for the more understated and yet powerful songs.  In the late Sixties and Seventies, artists took full advantage of this kind of listening, paying attention to album concept and sequencing so as to produce an integrated work of art.  Consider Side 2 of The Beatles' Abbey Road, where each song anticipates the next.  Or rock operas like The Who's Tommy or Quadraphrenia.  Somehow skipping over songs with the click of a button just wouldn't have been respectful: the artist had produced a whole work of art.
• Community.  As I've alluded to before, buying and listening to records was not an individualistic activity.  When you had a record, you had a visible assemblage of recorded sounds, something you could more easily share with another person, something you could pore over together.  In fact, record stores were great places to hang out and discover new music.  There were simply these large, tangible items that attracted us and around which conversation was fostered.
• Accountability.  Like it or not, producers, record companies, and disc jockeys served as quality control for what we heard.  The downside of this is that some good music never made it to its audience; the upside is that a lot of mediocre or just plain bad music stayed where it belonged (in the garage).  I should know.  I was in a band in high school that needed to stay just there, in the garage, a problem only for the next door neighbors.  These days, when anyone can record inexpensively at home and have a MySpace page, good music is difficult to find in a barrage of noise pollution.  No one is accountable.
• A Richer Incarnation.  The artist who released an album on LP knew he or she was working with a larger palette.  The artistic work, if done well, not only was a collection of sounds embodied in discrete three to four minute songs but could be focused on a concept or theme, with cover art, liner notes, and sequencing of songs that fostered surprise, diversity of sounds, and anticipation to create a richer, multi-sensory experience.

Can you add to this?  I suspect that there is more than this to be said, as well as some counter arguments about digital music.  Yet I have the overwhelming sense that I have lost something, and I want it back.  As we can't turn back the clock, how do we carry these values into a music culture of disembodied sounds?  I'll deal with that next!

If you are under 25, the following may not make sense to you or, at very least, you will only be able to experience what I describe by some imprecise analogy.  What I am going to describe is the pleasure of thinking about, buying, and listening to a vinyl LP record --- yes, those rather large, archaic looking 12-inch in diameter discs in square cardboard sleeves, probably found somewhere in your parents' attic or grandparents' den.  Even if you're over 25 and have bought a vinyl LP at some time in the past, you may have forgotten what the experience is like.  A cultural shift occurred while you were busy living.  So let me tell you what it was like for me.

First, in my youth and teenage years, other than Rolling Stone Magazine or FM radio, there was little information available on new music releases --- no web pages, blogs, MySpace, or satellite radio.  You found music by going to the record store and cruising the bins.  In addition, there were very few stores dedicated solely to records.  In my hometown, there was one, and it was inconveniently located downtown.  I did most of my record shopping in the basement of Franklin's Drug Store, an area which amounted to about six feet of bins, two deep, all-inclusive of every genre.  My first record cost $3.49 --- an exorbitant amount for me then.  Essentially, I would have to cut two neighbors' grass to earn that much.  Given that gratification was delayed (another feeling many under 25s often do not know), I had some time for dreaming about what I would buy, shuffling through the colorful records in the bins, staring at the artwork, and holding the records.  I can't overemphasize the sense of touch, the simple pleasure of holding something.

Take, for example, the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Band LP, released in 1967 when I was nine (and which I discovered a couple years later).  There is a lot to look at on that cover, a pop art melange of characters, with psychedelic colors popping out at you, the word "STEREO" printed at the top of the cover, an important claim then, and lyrics printed on the back.  Before Pepper it wasn't common to get lyrics with an album.  Rip open the shrink wrap and the sleeve opens like some awesomely oversized CD digi-pak to reveal a full color photo of the Fab 4 decked out in their marching band threads, and there's a similar shot on the back, standing, only Paul is turned with his back to the viewer.  How long did we discuss why he was turned away from us?  What message was being conveyed?  But the fun doesn't stop there: Inside the sleeve is a color page of Sgt. Pepper cut-outs --- a mustache, badges, a stand-up band photo, and more.  And the weight!  With disc, Sgt. Pepper clocks in at 13 ounces, not much less than a pound.  Substantiality!  When you carried an LP around, you had something.

When I'd get a record like Sgt. Pepper, or Jethro Tull's Aqualung, or Jefferson Airplane's Bark (which came in a brown paper bag), I'd take it to school.  A handful of guys in junior high would lug six to ten LPs around, and the after-lunch conversation in the courtyard was all about music.  We'd stare at the album covers, discuss the music and the meaning of lyrics, theorize about the album concepts (they had concepts then), and swap records for an evening.  The creativity!  Grand Funk Railroad's E Pluribus Funk LP was in a round, silver dollar-like package, Traffic's Low Spark of High Heeled Boys LP was a parallelogram, the corners clipped.  The Bee Gees' double-disc Odessa CD was covered in red velvet, like carpet (this was prior to that ugly disco phase for the boys).  On So Long Ago the Garden, pioneer Christian rocker Larry Norman is half naked on the front, the back a pair of snake-skin boots and a half eaten apple.  (Many retailers refused to sell it.)  Records made a statement, and their very size assured that it would be a very public statement.   Carry the zippered front of The Rolling Stones' Sticky Fingers around a high school campus and you've said something, haven't you?

So what's so great about vinyl LPs?  Let's summarize:

• LPs are multi-sensory experiences.  You can touch a record, smell it (whether vinyl, the cardboard sleeve, or something else like the scratch and sniff sound of The Raspberries self-titled debut), hear it, watch it turn on the turntable, lift the needle and set it down on another track, open it, see it on a shelf, and ponder the artwork.  Digital music is for listening only, with only a teaser of cover art.
• LPs are (were) public experiences.  When you bought an LP, you purchased it in a public place, carried it around, and put it on a shelf where folks could see it.  When you carry around a half-naked Larry Norman, people talk.  Junior high girls freak.  People generally don't know what you're listening to on the IPOD and often don't care.
• LPs created a limited, shared  market.  When artists were limited to LPs, the market could only absorb so much, as there was only so much shelf space.  There was a more shared appreciation of music, in that the market was limited.  In today's digital world, there are so many artists and such a broad spectrum of quality that chances are most of the artists a person is listening to are ones you've never heard of.  That being the case, we lose a shared culture and have less to talk about.  We can say "I like X", but it's difficult to discuss X with someone who hasn't heard X and has little reason to.
• LPs rewarded patience.  You could pick the needle up and skip songs, but given the difficulty of it, we were more apt to listen to whole albums.  Given that albums were sometimes conceptual, this promoted deeper listening.  The track that didn't bowl you over on first listen may grow on you and reward on repeated listenings.
• LPs sound better.  It's true, provided the record is well-preserved of course and you have the right equipment.  I wouldn't know, as I never had great equipment, but all audiophiles say this.

That's just a few things that made records better.  Not that they were better in every way.  (That's another post!)  But basically, we traded all this for immediacy and portability.  I think that's an unfair trade. 

Stay tuned for tomorrow:  Why the vinyl LP is more biblical than digital music.  I'm serious, people!  The kids are missing out!

Tonight I drove to Montreat College, a small school on the outskirts of Asheville, North Carolina. They have asked me to do a review of their Music Business Program, They put me up in a huge old house off their main campus called the Manor House. It's pretty creepy.

I'm alone in the house, apparently. It's one of those old houses that has several staircases leading to an untold number of unpeopled rooms, with bookcases lining the walls, huge banquet rooms, and even a swimming pool in the basement. There are even hidden panels in the walls where during Prohibition former tenants hid the alcohol. It reminds me of what old professor Digory's house must have looked like in "The Lion, the Witch, & the Wardrobe," just waiting to be explored. But I haven't found a wardrobe yet. Come to think of it, maybe it's more like Hitchcock's Bates Inn: the only sound I hear right now, besides that of me typing, is the drip drip drip of the bathroom faucet.

Of course I don't believe in ghosts or disembodied spirits of any form, and yet in some way the former tenants of this place remain, their collective memories only vaguely discernible to me etched in the chipped paint on the walls, the creaks in the hardwood floors, the well-worn books, the slightly out of tune piano, and in the depression in that empty chair, just there, outside my door. They're all here. Long ago this was a home, and then they left, or died, leaving behind only the presence of their absence --- and one day that too will be gone.

I need to stop that drip. If I do, what will I hear then?

One of the bibles of the music business is the multi-authored This Business of Music, now in its tenth edition.  Billed as the "definitive guide to the music industry," the prose is dry and often pedantic, frustratingly anecdoteless, just the kind of thing you avoid reading at bedtime (or maybe you do read it, as a sleep-aid).  And yet there are a precious few light moments in this encyclopedic tome, or more to point, some thought-provoking comments.

On the very first page, for example, there is a quote from sociologist Marshal McLuhan, who said that "The medium is the message."  Though the writers seem oblivious to what the quote really means, as it is disconnected with what follows, it made me realize, sadly, that form has trumped content, that image and sound mark one out as belonging to a particular "tribe," and the lyric has (except in folk music, the poor stepchild of the music family) been neglected.  Being, looking, and sounding like Hannah Montana (Miley Cyrus) is more important to tweens than that which she sings about.  McLuhan's comment, like his disciple Neil Postman's follow-up work (Amusing Ourselves to Death) has proven prophetic.

In a section on Independent record producers, there is a very helpful categorization of producers offered by Jerry Wexler, renowned producer and former co-owner of Atlantic Records.  Wexler (who ought to know) said there are three types of producers --- the documentarian, the project leader, and the studio superstar.  The documentarian simply tries to capture what is there, unadorned and real; the project leader tires to enhance what is there, to get the best out of the artist; and the studio superstar, as you can imagine, takes center stage.  Every record the studio superstar producer makes sounds uncannily just like. . . him.  For some reason this may be the predominant type in the Contemporary Christian Music business, though I won't name any names.  Maybe the three producer types are really just reflections of personalities in the general culture --- those who simply take it in for what it is (a refreshing kind of person to be around, though quite frustrating if you need to get something done), those who accept what is and yet interact with and try to transform it, and those who simply think they are what is, the kind of people that seem to suck all the air out of a room when they enter it.  All this makes it so critical that the artist matches the producer; two superstars in the studio are incendiary; two documentarians spend a lot of money and get nowhere fast; and two project leaders (enhancers) may lose sight of what it is they are enhancing, lose focus.  What is your spouse?  What are you?  Somehow I sense that the somnolent wanderings of The Grateful Dead and Jerry Wexler's production must have been an expensive marriage.

The chapter on copyright infringement yielded some interesting anecdotes, if only that they were court cases.  There's Fogerty v. Fantasy, Inc., which allowed Creedence Clearwater Revival's leader to recover attorney fees from his record company.  Oh my.  It reminds how litigation can sap a life.  Fogerty spent years fighting Fantasy, never releasing a record, sounding more bitter all the time.  A little foresight and better advice and he might have seen a "bad moon arising."

The most dissatisfying chapter of the book was the one on agents and managers.  Now this special breed of prima donnas deserves better.  There's so much material to work with!  I didn't work with many, but one I worked with was a crazy alcoholic who sent me hand-typed single page sizzling faxes at midnight with (count 'em) sometimes as many as 50 profanities on a page.  Listen to the understatement of this sentence: "The close and often difficult relationship between artists and managers during the years of active management makes it desirable that the parties involved be sure of their compatibility before entering into binding contracts."  No, no, no.   These "parties" need marriage counseling before working together, and the manager may need a personality profile.  They tend to be controlling, all-consuming players in an artist's life.  There should be a big stop sign here in the book.

I could go on, but I might bore you.  The music business is a lot more interesting than this book, full of sin, wretched in its on peculiar way, and redeemed the same way anything else in this world is redeemed, by the power of love (love of music) and, in the end, by the One who loves His Creation.  I'm shelving the book.  I don't want to think about copyrights and managers, whining artists and super star producers, lawsuits and licenses.  Just give me the music.  Somehow that never fails me, because even the bad music still reminds me of a Music that just may come, some day soon.

In these days of MySpace, Facebook, blogs, and an internet that is ubiquitous, it's a rare thing to find that an artist has managed to stay below the radar.  But apparently Nicholas Giaconia has managed to do that.  Nick is a talented singer-songwriter who released an interesting folk-pop record called Center of the Earth in the CCM environment in 1994 --- 14 years ago and what seems like a century in the music world.  Some things don't change much: There are still some greedy corporate types, artists on the make, and some form of payola (no matter how subtle).  However, since Nick's record, the music scene has been transformed more than once.  Whatever brief mainstream attention folk music had in the early Nineties, it quickly vanished, and all the folk music types went back to scrubbing for change.   But Nick Giaconia deserved a better break than he had.

This is fine record with ballads, blues songs, folk melodies, and a tongue-in-cheek defense of Amy Grant --- who was, at the time, under a microscope because she filmed a video with a man who was not her husband, sang songs that weren't filled with biblical references, and dressed like a woman who lived in the Nineties, leaving many to speculate that she had "sold out" or lost her faith.  It all seems silly now, but that's the way it was then, and Nick captured it, singing "she's sold out to the public/ money's all she hopes to find/ she doesn't sing for You no more/ I know because I can read her mind/ She's all strung out on drugs/ In fact I hear she worships Satan now/ Well everybody's judging Amy/ and you can clearly see/ that she has lost her thirst" and so on from there, a fun song and yet one full of truth.

There are some familiar names here, like Derri Daugherty (of The Choir) singing background vocals.  And some interesting sounds, like the steel-hooded national guitar played by Chris Carero.  Lyrically, it ranges from a couple songs that spring form biblical narratives, like "Woman at the Well," to worship, "Psalm," to other songs of psyche and soul, like the title cut, "Center of the Earth," which is no doubt a metaphor for the interior life and experience of the writer, as he beckons us to come along: "I took my journey to the center of the earth/ sent back black and white postcards to people up above/ the weather is nice here, no snow no rain/ but I haven't seen sunshine in days/ it looks like that's how it's gonna stay/ at the center of the earth."  The rest of the song becomes surreal, like something Larry Norman might have written, with Nick introducing all the people he's met at the center of the earth, like Elvis or Jimmy Hoffa, concluding that "you don't know me you don't know my blues/ till you've walked to the center of the earth/ in my blue suede shoes."  All in all, he is reminiscent of Bruce Cockburn --- always a tough sell in the Christian marketplace.

So how did Nick Giaconia's record see the light of day?  David Bunker, one of the principals in REX Records, a CCM label devoted in the late Eighties and early Nineties to Christian heavy metal (like Deitophobia) formed an imprint around singer-songwriters, figuring the time was ripe.  A lot of very good music was released on the imprint, Storyville Records, including Jan Krist, Australian Steve Grace, the UK duo Phil and John, Mo Leverett, Charlotte Madeleine, Eden Burning, and The Crossing.  But the label tanked.  The CCM market wasn't having it.  My own Silent Planet Records was born out of that frustration, though we focused on the mainstream market with better success for a time, until that market changed as well.

But enough of that.  You should hear Nick Giaconia.  You should celebrate the fact that something authentic and well-crafted and not slickly produced made it out in that time, a record that for the few Christians listening was like a breath of fresh air.  Let Nick be symbolic of all that great music that got overlooked.  Listen to just one song from Nick, "Better To Have Loved," here:    And then go buy a used copy of this long out of print record, now selling for the shameful price of as low as $.56 right here.  That's what happens to good music sometimes.

If you know how to get in touch with Nick, let me know.  I'd like to thank him for a good record and remind him that what he did back then still means something now, that he's not forgotten.  Good music endures.

On the cover of Phil Madeira's Off Kilter recording, there is a picture of Phil standing in his home studio, the floor positively littered with instruments --- drums, various electric and acoustic guitars, keyboards, and much more.  It's a vivid reminder of the immense talent that Phil possesses.  In addition to his ubiquitous session work on the Hammond B3 Organ, a signature sound for him, he plays virtually everything else.  Oh, he also writes great songs and sings and produces!  It was a privilege for me to spend a few years with Phil on Silent Planet Records and to bring his Three Horse Shoes record to national distribution. (You can still buy Three Horse Shoes here.)

Life has been hard at times for Phil, and that shows in one of the songs featured on this edition of Wide Angle Radio, "Jagged Heart."  Listen:

Not like I had a plan
Not like I saw the goal
You got to whittle down to nothing
Before you'll ever be made whole

I've been carving
Stripping off the bark
Rounding off the edges
Of this jagged heart

When I listen to Phil's music, I always get the sense that he is very much a man under construction, a ragamuffin --- just like all of us.  Listening to him in the interview is like sitting by an old friend and finding something in common.  So, enjoy the music on this month's Wide Angle Radio, and meet Phil, right here.  (Oh, and while you're on the Wide Angle page, check out the new recorded introduction I've added!)

God rest his soul, Christian music pioneer Larry Norman passed away Sunday morning around 2:45 A.M.  Though Larry has spent the last three decades suffering health issues, interpersonal conflicts, and likely diagnosed and undiagnosed mental illness, the trilogy of albums that he released in the early Seventies --- So Long Ago the Garden, Only Visiting This Planet, and In Another Land --- were pure genius.  I cannot even begin to recite all the crazy wonder of these songs --- songs like "Six Sixty Six," "I Am the Six O'Clock News," "PeacePollutionRevolution," or "Nightmare."  Wow.  Weird? Eccentric?  You bet.  But he made me a believer then in the power of music to speak the Gospel truth.  The music was good, as good as any secular counterpart.

I met Larry once.  My partner Tony and I were standing backstage behind the Silent Planet Records Acoustic Stage at the Cornerstone Music Festival in 2002.  A whiteish-blond haired guy with a "handler" on each side strode up to our RV "green room" for performers and strode right in, looking like he was straight out of 1970.  That was Larry Norman.  Unchanged.  Timeless.

I'll end with a portion of Larry's liner notes from his 1975 record, In Another land:

some people say there is no God, others
say that we are all God. sometimes i look
out over the city late at night and all the
lights look like diamonds and rubies on a
black jewelers cloth, all set in straight little
rows and sprinkled on the hillsides - and i
wonder how we have fallen so far.
and then i look up in the sky with its far
superior jewels; i look up and i find myself
waiting. and smiling.

The subtitle of that same album might serve as an appropriate epitaph: Death is conquered though you slumber.  Rest in peace, Larry.

[You can find more information on Larry Norman and his last words to fans here.]

The recent announcement that No Depression Magazine was ceasing publishing, preceded only by a week or so of the announcement that CCM Magazine was ceasing publication, is only further evidence that the music business is in decline. In 2001, sales of blank CDs exceeded sales of CDs with music on them, further evidence that people are downloading music files from the Internet and burning their own CDs. While you might say that artists are now free from the corporate machine (and there’s enough blame to lay on the record labels, who won’t garner a lot of sympathy), few want to pay much if anything for their music. And that’s a problem: when you don’t value something economically, you get exactly what you pay for --- a lot of crappy music.  I can only say: Please stop the music!

If you’ve cruised the aural halls of MySpace Music recently, it’s simply astounding how much music has been placed on the Internet. Most of it is terrible. Any kid with a laptop can record himself singing and playing the guitar, or messing around with his friends in a garage band, and post it. If you compare it to a record store, the shelves are cluttered with a huge inventory of albums literally falling off the racks and begging for attention. There is no reliable filter to assist you in finding something good, and the filters that do exist, while helpful, are of limited utility because their own standards may be too low at least ambiguous. For example, I subscribe to Paste Magazine so that I can get the sampler CD, but I generally find only one or two songs that are listenable, and even then it is rare I buy the album based on that song.

My conclusion is that most people who are making music for public consumption shouldn’t be doing so, and yet they won’t stop since it’s so easy to put it out there. Economic concerns used to weed out poor performers. Not now. Bad music has even been mainstreamed. For example, in the liner notes for the recent soundtrack for Juno (which, I understand, is a good movie), the producer quips how great he thought it would be to record a bunch of teenagers sitting around playing and singing crappy songs. Well, that’s a majority of what’s on the CD, and that’s what some people are paying for.  Sheesh.

Back to the problem: Other than record collectors and the minority of honest record buyers, people no longer want to pay for music. For goodness sakes, it’s everywhere. Why pay? Why? So we can get something worth paying for.  Will that happen? No, it won't.  We're beyond that point.

There are those who have a lot of ideas about how to use the Internet and other marketing techniques to sell music. The latest I read was David Byrne’s Wired Magazine article: “Survival Strategies for Emerging Artists — and Megastars.”  It's all about a more creative approach to using the Internet and digital distribution.  Everyone's trying to find a better business model or tweaking the one we have.  I have another idea.

What if we just went back to patronage?  You know, before the advent of recorded music (and for some, after) artists survived economically because they had patrons.  There was one person or a group of persons, the Church, or even a King who simply gave the artist the financial wherewithal to do what he was made to do: paint, compose music, conduct orchestras, and so on.  There was no music business.  Patrons might sponsor concerts in their parlors and invite friends in to hear the music.  These were the inspiration for today's house concerts.  A group of patrons would literally set the artist free not to worry about the business of making music.  The patrons could be a sounding board, people to whom the artist could be accountable (for use of time, productivity, work product, lifestyle, and so on.)  These patrons are huge believers in the giftedness of this particular artist, their vocational calling, and the need for their music.  Their patronage would free the artist from the warping effect of the market or the fans (who can be fickle and demanding).

So how would they make money?  To some extent, they don't need to.  Patronage sets them free from this economic imperative, but it doesn't free them from accountability for work.  The patrons can insist that the artist write good songs, play gigs in the community, and maintain a relationship with the patrons.  The artist belongs to a community, usually local, and cannot go it alone.  This results in less mimicry and more originality, as the artist is not trying to "make it." 

This kind of function is well-suited to the Church though, sadly, has been little exercised.  Churches go through a process of confirming the call of missionaries or pastors, identifying their gifts and providing a structure of accountability for the exercise of their gifts.  Could they not do the same for artists?  I have no problem at all serving on such a committee and saying to a budding young artist : "You know, we appreciate you, and while we don't know what all your gifts are, we can tell you it definitely isn't in music."  This kind of candor, if listened to, would help encourage the truly gifted and prevent the others who are gifted in non-artistic ways from experiencing a lot of unwarranted hardship and grief.  Artists, like pastors and missionaries, may have to do some tentmaking at the outset or long-term, but they would not depend on a fickle market to validate their gifts and call.

Will this end crappy music?  No, but if those making it get little to no traffic on their web sites, they may eventually stop and do something else with their lives.  Will this stop people from downloading their music for free (you know, from stealing)?  No, but it won't matter.  The artist with patrons will have a community endowing him and little reason to be concerned about illegal downloading.  They'll have an endowment, supplemental income from gigs in the community, and even, if they sense the demand, record sales to the ones who love and support them (the community coming to the gigs).  They don't need radio, labels, or distribution.  You can have the music for free, if that's what you do, but that's not what it's all about.  This artist is set free to really give his music to the community.

And that would be better than this whole business of music.

[For more on this issue, visit a recent post "The Selling of the Free," on my friend Tony's blog here.  I think there's a lot to be said for creative packaging and even releasing in vinyl, but like Tony I don't think that alone will answer the decline of the business.]

The photo of Ray Davies that adorns the front of his album, Working Man's Cafe, is perfectly fitted to the bittersweet content and the sardonic wit of this former Kinks frontman.  There's Ray, half-smiling, half-frowning, his reflection caught in a window.  Or maybe that's a grimace, a wink, a kind of challenge to the buyer that "you're gonna love this music, and you'll hate it too."  But no, I really like this record.  It's witty, sweet at times, wistful and nostalgic, melodically strong, often rocking, and always interesting.

I first heard the Kinks in high school, about 1973, the melodic, jangly "Lola" blasting out my inexpensive Zenith record player.  You know, "la-la, la-la Lo_la, e-o-le-e-Lo_la."  I didn't know until later that Lola was a transvestite.  In fact, I think Ray may have been a factor in my education on that point.  But in the coming year, I worked my way through the Kinks catalog, like Muswell Hillbillies, where Ray sings "I'm a twentieth century man but I don't wanna be here."  (He still doesn't.)  Or there's the out-of-space-out-of-time alienation of "Acute Paranoia Schizoprenia Blues," or that lovely critique of the social service busy-bodies in "Here Come the People In Gray" who "are gonna take me away to Lord knows where." 

But whereas Muswell Hillbillies is a social commentary on working class woes in North London, Working Man's Cafe reveals Ray's ambivalence about American culture, a wry bit of commentary from a now over 60 rock star.  For example, the lead-off song, "Vietnam Cowboys," finds Ray lamenting the homogenization that flows from globalization, not in any heavy-handed or fully conclusive way (and thus, not shrill or propagandistic) but rather simply pointing out the ironies.  Like "Cowboys in Vietnam making their movies," or hamburgers in China and sushi bars in Maine.  He picks up that wistful theme in the title cut, "Working Man's Cafe," when he says "Everything around me seems unreal/ Everywhere I go it looks and feels like America/ We've really come a long way down the road."  The alienation surfaces again in "The Real World" in the observation that "everything looks the same the whole world over now," with Ray wondering "where is the real world?"

There's echoes of Muswell Hillbillies as well in "No One Listens," where Ray laments the inefficiency and inhumanness of bureaucracy: "Now I'm stuck here in the system/ They ain't gonna listen, nobody listen/ they ain't gonna listen to me."  But the most intimate plea, the focal point of Ray's cry for meaning is found in "Hymn for a New Age," where, after saying what he doesn't believe --- that "God is a man with white hair/ sitting in a big chair/ judging the world and its morals/ Forgiving today so we can sin again tomorrow" --- he admits to the honesty of "I need something to connect to/ Someone to help me through/ Something I can pray to" and says "We need a hymn/ I believe/ I need something to look up to/ I believe I wanna pray but don't know what to."  Ray Davies speaks for all who recognize the God-shaped vacuum in their hearts, the empty place needing filling, and at 62 he probably recognizes that all he has tried thus far won't fill it up.  As other songs on the album make clear, human remedies don't seem to suffice.  Morphine may dull the pain ("Morphine Song"), human love is temporal ("Peace In Our Time"), and idealistic visions of who we are will disappoint ("Imaginary Man").  Ray Davies needs a new hymn.  A lot of us do.

Musically, this album is always interesting and more memorable than last years Other People's Lives.  From the rollicking faux-country of "Vietman Cowboys" to the Kinks-like British-rock of "You're Asking Me" to the ballad "Working Man's Cafe" and rock of "Hymn for a New Age," Ray keeps it interesting.  It's really just the Kinks, oozing out of Ray Davies.

I recommend the Limited Edition CD/DVD set of this record.  It includes four bonus cuts which are worth having, as well as a video of ray's 2001 tour of America, a home movie set to the music of "Working Man's Cafe" and an interesting piece given that he was on the road just after 9/11 and was able to witness eerily quiet airports, for example.  Buy the record here.  Listen to "Hymn for a New Age" here:

Intense alternative folk rock.  That's how the website CD Baby refers to the music of Skatman Meredith.  I think it's accurate.  Skat (whose real name is David Meredith), was only the fourth artist I signed to Silent Planet Records and the first artist (make that person) I had ever met who lived in Delaware.  (Do you know anyone who lives in Delaware?)  Not only that, he lived in a tiny town called Hockessin, the name of which has stuck in my mind since I met him ten years ago. 

Skat is honest, generous (when I met him he was giving CDs away at concerts, something more practical in these times than in those times), funny, and laid back --- an extremely easy person to work with.  On this episode of Wide Angle, in an interview with John Fischer, you'll hear that honesty from a guy who has had struggles but remains hopeful.  We were hanging out with John Fischer and Skat in the high desert air of Santa Fe, New Mexico, in February 2000, where we had a blast doing the interview, visiting Folk Alliance, and hiking the countryside.  I haven't seen Skat in years, but I still regard it as a privilege to have known and worked with him on two fine records --- The Garden and Mercyside (both of which can be purchased in the Silent Planet store in the sidebar).

Skat, wherever you are, thanks.

[Listen to this month's Wide Angle radio here.]

Small graces
Little glimpses of the kingdom come
From unexpected places
These are the small graces

(Bob Bennett, "Small Graces," from the album Small Graces)

Justice and mercy, law and grace.  Both are intertwined in scripture.  When God revealed Himself to Moses, as recounted in Exodus 36:6-7, he spoke of both, describing Himself as "a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin," and going on to speak of justice.  As Stephen Smallman notes, his placement of grace before justice suggests that God wants us first to focus on grace.

There are a hundred judgments I see every day.  Murder, poverty, divorce, hateful talk, coarseness in manner and language, selfish greed, natural calamity --- a panoply of judgments borne of sin --- abound and threaten sometimes to monopolize my attention.  We reap what we sow, we suffer the sins of others, we suffer even the brokenness of Creation.  Difficult providences are all around.  All of this is, in some general way, temporal justice for a fallen world.

And yet God is saying, "look for grace, first."  Like William Cowper's hymn says, "Behind a frowning providence/ He hides a smiling face."  Or like the writer of Lamentations says, in the midst of an oracle of woe: "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;/ his mercies never come to an end;/ they are new every morning;/ great is your faithfulness" (Lam. 3:22-23).

The sun shines, glistening on the back of still-green magnolia leaves.  The cardinals still visit the feeder in my backyard, the male's red color brilliant against a blue sky.  My wife found her lost earring, and the maids who don't speak much English are giggling about something in the other room.  I'm listening to a song by Bob Bennett, who I haven't seen for four or five years, and listening to him just now I smile remembering the first time we met my then one-year old son pulled his beard.  He's singing "There's a hand of kindness/ Holding me, holding me/ There's a hand of kindness/ holding onto me," and hearing him now is like opening up a door to a long unused room in my memory, rich and deeply peopled.

Grace first, today.

[Do yourself a favor.  Listen to Bob Bennett's "Hand of Kindness here: Then go buy his music here.

[The "40 Days On the Edge" posts are my ruminations in light of Stephen Smallman's devotional entitled "Forty Days On the Mountain," read in conjunction with Harvard Landscape History Professor John Stilgore's "Outside Lies Magic: Regaining History and Awareness in Everyday Places."  Both books may be ordered by clicking on them where they are listed in the sidebar under "Current Reading."]

If you consider the praise that Paul gives in Ephesians 1:3-14, you may experience a disconnect between his experience and your own.  I do.  Paul praises God "who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places" (Eph. 1:3).  It's reminiscent of Peter's confident assertion in 2 Peter 1:3, where he says that "His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness. . . ."  These are unequivocal statements of every, and all: nothing has been withheld from us.

As Stephen Smallman says, "[w]e have been adopted into the richest family in the universe and we are constantly lamenting our poverty!"  What Paul prays for through all these Prison Epistles is that we would know what we have in Christ, that we would know who we are.  It's as if when we read Scripture God is reminding us who we are, and when we walk away from it, He says "Remember who you are."  More than that, He is saying "Act like who you are."  But this is really our life purpose, to discover the essence of God and, in the process, discover the essence of who we are.

Singer-songwriter Mark Heard grasped what it would be like to go through life having the riches of Christ and yet acting like an orphan:

I will rise from my bed with a question again
As I work to inherit the restless wind
The view from my window is cold and obscene
I want to touch what my eyes haven't seen

But they have packaged our virtue in cellulose dreams
And sold us the remnants 'til our pockets are clean
Til our hopes fall 'round our feet
Like the dust of dead leaves
And we end up looking like what we believe

We are soot-covered urchins running wild and unshod
We will always be remembered as the orphans of God
They will dig up these ruins and make flutes of our bones
And blow a hymn to the memory of the orphans of God

Like bees in a bottle we are flying at fate
Beating our wings against the walls of this place
Unaware that the struggle is the blood of the proof
In choosing to believe the unbelievable truth

But they have captured our siblings and rendered them mute
They've disputed our lineage and poisoned our roots
We have bought from the brokers who have broken their oaths
And we're out on the streets with a lump in our throats

We are soot-covered urchins running wild and unshod
We will always be remembered as the orphans of God
They will dig up these ruins
And make flutes of our bones
And blow a hymn to the memory of the orphans of God

(Mark Hear, from Satellite Sky)

When I listen to the small but beautiful catalog of music Mark left us, I sense that he struggled in his relatively short life with realizing the riches he had in Christ, sometimes feeling like an orphan.

I'm not an orphan.  I've chosen to believe the unbelievable truth.  I just need to remember who I am.

Listen to mark Heard's "Orphans of God" here:

There's a haunting quote by writer Flannery O'Connor featured on the notes for Kate Campbell's 2006 gospel album, For the Living of These Days: "Go warn the children of God of the terrible speed of mercy."  I'm rolling that sentence over in mind tonight as I drove east and then north from Columbia, South Carolina through palmetto forests, over the Congaree and Great Pee Dee Rivers, by deeply southern towns.  I'm aware of the strange environment created by the interstate highway with its interchanges, how the folk of sleepy southern towns brush against New Yorkers and Latin-Americans moving south and north on the freeway, exiting for gas and food, barely noticing the very different people and very different voices behind the counters of the fast food restaurants.

I drive into one town just to escape the homogeneity of the interchange, and I realize I'm in another world, really.  The very air feels different, the people move slower, walk streets at leisure.  Commercial strips are faded and worn, and yet I can identify the old town center of this place, what existed before the interstate came and skewed the nature of the community.  I know it brought drugs and money and corruption.  Seeing three teenage boys cross the street, I wonder about their lives, about the living of their days, about what they hope for and live for.

Back on the highway, I'm listening to Kate's album made in Muscle Shoals, Alabama with Spooner Oldham.  It's fitting music for driving, reminding me of growing up in my small country church, and it helps me rid myself of the superior attitude I had when I drove through that small town, the wonder that people would or could live in a place like that and be happy.

She sings an old hymn:

For the love of God is broader
Than the measure of our mind
And the heart of the Eternal
Is most wonderfully kind

There’s a wideness in God’s mercy
Like the wideness of the sea.

Full atonement.  Christ has made a way for me, and for the people in this small town, to boldly come before him, clean.

It's terrible what He had to do.  But because of it, we live.

Singer-songwriters are a dime a dozen, embellishing the hallways, rooms, and doorways of the folk conventions, guitars in hand or strapped to their backs, eking out a subsistence living at times, living out of their cars.  Why do they do it?  Some because they can't do anything else, I guess. As Pierce Pettis once told me about himself, he did what he did "because he couldn't do anything else."  Pierce said he'd rather do something else, because he could make a better living, and he never counseled anyone to take up the "profession," and yet it's what he did.

So when I was in the music business, why, among the legion of troubadours out there, did I partner with the ones I did?  I'm not sure I can point to one factor.  Sovereign luck, deliberate choice, fortuitous circumstances, poor judgment --- all may have played a factor in my choices.  But I know why I chose Matt Auten:  because of his literary nature, because listening to his lyrically rich songs is trip through countless metaphors, and because Matt himself is articulate, poetic, and a good guitar player to boot.  Listening to his songs on this episode of Wide Angle Radio, I look for more instrumentation, a richer musical palette, but Matt wouldn't have it.  He likes it mellow.  And that's OK --- he's the one who dreamed up the songs in the first place.

Matt Auten, now by day a Black Mountain, North Carolina trim carpenter (he can do something else and, by all accounts, do it very well) is featured on this January 2000 episode of Wide Angle Radio.  You'll enjoy the sounds, the interview, as well as other music by Bruce Cockburn, Matt Jones, Rick Unruh, and Jane Kelly Williams.  Give it a listen here.

Though it's certainly not a "best of" list (which is a bit presumptuous), the following list of ten albums released in 2007 does include the 2007 releases that I listened to the most during the year and expect to listen to in the years ahead.  Given a Rhapsody to Go subscription which allows me to listen to whole albums without buying them for only $14.95 a month, I listened to a lot of music, and I'd have to say that most of what I tried out was just not good or was very inconsistent in quality.  When you stack most of them up to the following records (some by veteran artists), the contrast is remarkable.  In addition, while occasionally an album will have an initial appeal, it may not endure.  These albums endured, and repeated listening to them is rewarding.  So, for what it's worth, this is the best I heard last year (in no particular order, as I could not possibly rank them):

1.  Memory Almost Full --- Paul McCartney.  I'm a sucker for a pop tune, and while this ex-Beatle can't quite write a tune as memorable as, say, "Yesterday," he still has the touch.  MY favorite is the lead off track: "Dance Tonight."

2.  We Walked In Song --- The Innocence Mission.  I'm sorry if some folks find this trio boring, but I find them moving in the simplicity of their songs.  It's mellow alt-folk, uncluttered and spiritually refreshing.  While this album isn't quite as memorable as Befriended, I still love it.  Karen Peris has a beautiful voice.

3.  Live On Sunset Strip --- The Raspberries.  The quintessential power-pop band of the Seventies reunites for an amazing, energetic concert.  Eric Carmen and the boys looked and sounded a bit bubblegum back then; I think I like them even better now.  They were second to Badfinger in my book.  It makes me miss album covers: their cover had a scratch off scent of (what else) raspberries!

4.  We'll Never Turn Back --- Mavis Staples.  This is a phenomenal album by the veteran Staples Singers vocalist, one of the few that manages to bring social activism, the Gospel, and music together without stridency or propaganda.  Producer Ry Cooder really brings it together musically, giving it a rootsy, modern feel.  Powerful lyrically and musically.  I particularly like "My Own Eyes." Maybe, just maybe, this is my #1.

5.  Songbird: Rare Tracks and Forgotten Gems --- Emmylou Harris.  This is one of those rare box sets that is worth it, full of true musical gems that you likely have not heard and do not own.  78 tracks from a 40 year career, genre-jumping from country (which predominates) to rock and folk, with a wonderfully designed package as well, includiong a hardcover book.  Four CDs and a DVD of concert recordings.  I paid $52 for this and  feel like I got a bargain.

6.  Traffic and Weather --- Fountains of Wayne.  I suppose this fits in the power-pop category, but these guys write songs of sufficient diversity to keep it interesting.  On top of that, the lyrics are clever --- each song is like a mini-short story.  It never grows old!  I particularly like "Yolanda Hayes," who I think I have met.

7.  Eisenhower --- The Slip.  Again, I like the melodies and cool arrangements of songs in this alternative rock band.  I actually saw them in concert locally and their moody set played well.

8.  Challengers --- The New Pornographers.  If you can get past the inexplicable name (they are not pornographic), you'll love the interesting songs.  Alt-rock, I love their voices --- good melody and harmony.  (If you haven't guessed it, I must have melody!)  I just find the songs here consistently listenable.

9.  Magic --- Bruce Springsteen.   This is the best from Springsteen for some time, a return to a rock band sound.  There's not much here I don't like, and I can't say that about his last.

10.  Everyone --- Grand Drive.  They're not well known on this side of the pond, but these Brits know how to make good alt-country- pop.  Nothing brash here, just nice strumming, a little Hammond B3 organ, occasional keyboards, little love songs.  It grows on you.

And that's it.  Of course I didn't listen to all the music out there, and I have to give a nod to an artist like Josh Ritter, who I simply need to listen to more and would probably put in my list had I done so (or so some friends tell me), but maybe you'll find something here that you will enjoy.  I'm thankful for the gifts represented here, even if the Giver is not always acknowledged. Here's to a New Year full of good music!

The Christmas season for me would be lacking without the music of Jerry Read Smith and his wife, Lisa.  Jerry's hammered dulcimer accompanied by Lisa's flute have for years bookended Advent through Epiphany with an instrumental accompaniment.  And today, Thanksgiving, as I write this I am thankful for the contribution that their music has made to my life.

About 15 years ago I was booking a concert series for my church when I remembered an album of hammered dulcimer music I bought some time in the Seventies (that era before the compact disc), The Strayaway Child, the first album recorded by Jerry.  It was awesome.  I had never heard a hammered dulcimer before and was moved by its sound.  When I was searching for artists to appear as a part of our concert series, I thought of Jerry's music, and yet I had no idea if he was a Christian or if he would appear in a church.  I called him.  I asked him an innocuous "how would you feel about appearing in a church?" and was treated to a 45 minute testimony of his conversion and life since conversion.  He told me he was playing at a folk festival where he also sold dulcimers (because he makes them as well) and a bearded hippie simply walked up to him and said "Jesus is the bridge, man," and that haunted him sufficiently that night that it brought him to God.   With that, I invited him to come, and he did, and he kept coming for a number of years until he gave up playing live.

Jerry is one of the most intense people I have ever met, pursuing whatever the need or goal of the moment is with passion --- whether making dulcimers in his workroom, conversing, playing music, praying, or being your friend.  It was natural to invite him to be the focus of this special Christmas 1999 edition of Wide Angle Radio.  You'll hear his passion (and wife Lisa's sweet moderating influence) in the interview and music.  You'll also enjoy Christmas songs, both original and traditional, by Bruce Cockburn, Brooks Williams, Phil Madeira, Pierce Pettis, Matt Auten, and Claire Holley.  It's one of my favorite programs.  Listen to the program here.

It gave me great pleasure to also work with Jerry to bring to fruition a whole album of Christmas music, One Wintry Night, which I highly recommend for this Christmas season.  Purchase it here. 

Someone once told me that they disliked Fall because everything is dying and it makes them sad.  I suppose I can understand that, but I've never felt it.  For me Autumn is like one last glorious flame before the night of Winter descends, the long-awaited rest after all the activity --- the vacations, the swimming, the compulsion to be outdoors and active when you'd rather curl up inside with a book, the preparations for a new school year and then the beginnings of school and a host of other activities. I get tired thinking about it.  Despite the premature press of the commercial Christmas, like nature, I'm winding down, ready to let it all come to a rest.  I walk the streets littered with leaves and it reminds me a well-lived in home, papers and books strewn everywhere, the litter of life comforting, like my desk and study writ large.

Everyone who sells anything wants me to think about Christmas now, but I try not to.  I want to savor Fall not as a prelude to the real thing --- the secular Christmas --- but as part of the real thing.  Thanksgiving remains decidedly not Christmas for me.  And one thing I do not want to hear until December 1st are Christmas songs.  So I began thinking last year: what is the soundtrack of Fall and, more particularly, the soundtrack of Thanksgiving?

Since there are few songs about Thanksgiving, in picking my soundtrack I did so in perfect subjective freedom.  Revisiting my playlist this year, I found little to change, dropping Brian Wilson as too "pop" for my list, adding Peter Himmelman's "Gratitude" (for obvious reasons) and James Taylor's "Carolina On My Mind" because it reminds me of home, as well as Jars of Clay's rendition of America's "Lonely People" because, well, the reality is that holidays are a lonely, lonely time for some people.  I picked 22, because that's what filled the disc. 

I noticed a few things about what came to mind.  First, I gravitate to the acoustic sounds.  I think that the music of home for me, where I was raised listening to traditional country music (nothing like what is on the radio today), is acoustic music.  Buoyant or quirky power-pop didn't seem to have any place here (though Charlie Brown made it).  Second, these songs are not the "praise - Jesus - I'm - so - thankful" songs of the CCM world, though I haven't anything against them.  They simply do not remind me of Home or Thanksgiving.  Third, they are not all happy songs, as there is a recognition that some people are trying to get Home and can't, some have lost their homes or family members, and for some Thanksgiving with family brings tension and arguments.  Yes, there's a definite streak of melancholy here.  And yet, I think the general feel of these songs is joy, and joy is far better than happiness.  And finally, there are no songs that suggest Christmas.  This is, after all Thanksgiving, the climax of autumn, and while the rest of the world may think it a mere pause in the Christmas shopping that is already underway, I don't.  No Christmas music, and no Christmas lights until the days after Thanksgiving!

So here's my list:

1.  Come Before Winter, by Jerry Reed Smith.  An instrumental start with the title echoing Paul's request for Timothy to "do your best to get here before winter" (2 Timothy 4:15).  I think of it as a call to friends and family to come and gather before winter.

2.  In the Bounty of the Lord, by Claire Holly.  A gospel bluegrass number that celebrates what God gives us.  The style is reminiscent of music I listened to growing up.

3.  Here in America, by Rich Mullins.  The start of a great album, this is a kind of updated "This Land Is Your Land," a non-patriotic celebration of America.

4.  Gratitude, by Peter Himmelman.  "I'm glad that I can see the brown eyes of my daughter. . . . Forgive me if I lost a sense of gratitude."  Himmelman, an orthodox Jew, knows Who to thank.  His song is a confession of how we take things for granted and forget to be thankful to our Creator.

5.  Carolina on My Mind, by James Taylor.  Introducing the song recently, an aging Taylor said, "I miss my Dad, my dog Hercules, and my home."  When we get older, our thoughts turn to our first home.

6.  Thank You, by Jan Krist.  It wouldn't be Thanksgiving without saying "thank you," and Jan manages to lace the thanks with enough melancholy and angst to keep it real.  She's a good friend, and hearing her music brings many memories.

7.  Covert War, by David Wilcox.  Wow.  If you had a family like this, you wouldn't want to go home for Thanksgiving.  Fireworks at the Thanksgiving meal!  Sad, but real.

8.  The Water is Wide, by Eva Cassidy.  Beautiful voice.  Classic song.  Trying to get home and can't get there.

9.   Rumours of Glory, by Bruce Cockburn.  A song about common grace, about seeing God everywhere.  It'll make you thankful.

10.  Follow Me, The Innocence Mission.  I grew up on John Denver, so to hear this song conjures up memories of high school and friends.  But I like Karen Peris's tender vocal on it here.

11. My Father, by Judy Collins.  My father didn't make many Thanksgivings with me, as he died when I was 14.  I remember him on this day.

12. Thanksgiving Day, by Ray Davies.  Kinks front-man Davies can claim the only legitimate song about Thanksgiving!  He eschews his usual sardonic wit and writes a warm tune here, and the most rocking thing you'll hear on this playlist.

13. Be Thou My Vision, by Van Morrison.  It wouldn't be Thanksgiving without a hymn, and this is likely my favorite, with a very Celtic delivery by Van.

14. Love's Gonna Carry Me Home, by Pierce Pettis.  Home again.  Another southern singer-songwriter.

15. A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, by George Winston.  Watching Charlie Brown is a part of every holiday.  Besides, it's a bit of a pick-me-up.

16.  Homeward Bound, by Simon and Garfunkel.  Mainstays of my high school and college years, and this song is again about that longing for home, "I wish I was. . . ."

17. Wanderer's Song, by Brooks Williams.  One of my favorites by Brooks, this song is about how all roads lead home.

18. Come Thou Fount/ Grain By Grain, by Matt Auten.  Gorgeous hymn, and a reminder that God is the fount of every blessing.

19.  Lonely People, by Jars of Clay.  How many lonely people spend Thanksgiving with only their TV?  "Well, I'm on my way back home. . . ."

20. River Where Mercy Flows, by Julie Miller.  I love Julie's songs, and the tenderness and fragility of her voice is disarming.  Thank God for His mercy.

21. What Wondrous Love, by Jars of Clay.  Another hymn favorite.  Thank God for his wondrous love.

22. Homecoming, by Jerry Reed Smith.  An instrumental coda which reminds us, I think, of where our real Home is, where it will be Thanksgiving all the time.

Well, that's it.  I played this for my wife, again this year, and she said it still didn't sound like Thanksgiving to her, and I said what's Thanksgiving supposed to sound like?  I don't know for sure.  My kids don't like it, but this is some of what it sounds like for me.

[You can download the MP3 of the playlist here, but be forwarned, it is a large file. Right-click and save it to your desktop for listening to later!]

God loves matter, which is why he made lots of it (God must love space even more.) 

(Cornelius Plantinga, in Engaging God's World)

When Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins were hurtling through space toward the moon in Apollo 11, they had no idea what they were hurtling  through.  We still don't.  At least we don't know much. In fact, my cats may know just as much for all I know.

I think of space as emptiness, as the absence of things, or matter, and yet scientists say that's not really the case.  As I understand them, outer space is not completely empty (that is, a perfect vacuum) but contains a low density of particles, predominantly hydrogen plasma, as well as electromagnetic radiation, dark matter and dark energy --- mostly the latter two "dark" twins, except we really don't know what they are or if they're really there (kind of like imaginary playmates).  For instance, dark matter is said to be a mysterious substance which scientists think accounts for most of the mass in the universe but that is invisible to current instruments.  We don't really know for sure that it's there, and yet this stuff we can't see accounts for 96% of the universe.  But you know scientists; they positively live to postulate.

But enough of that.  I think of space more in the sense of spaciousness, an openness filling the yawning gaps between good solid things like trees, stars, and people.  There's a lot of it around.  God made it, so he must love it (says Plantinga), and given how much of it there is, he must love it a lot.

God does love space --- the sparseness of it, the roominess of it, the solitude of it, the wonder of it, the silence of it, and the noise of it.  And so should we, or so do we, but for sin's curse.  Because of sin, some of us can't abide being alone in the solitude of space. Agoraphobics, those who fear open places, hide in their rooms, undone by the expanse of space and place.  And some of us, like nettling bureaucrats, rush to fill every interstice of human experience with a regulation, rule, or command --- legalists to the core who can't abide the inevitable space in our codifications of appropriate behavior.  And yet it was not to be this way.

Our distant ancestor, Job, marveled at the emptiness of space, wondering that "he spreads out the northern skies over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing," (Job 26:7) and later concluding that "these are but the outer fringe of his works; how faint the whisper we hear of him!" (26:14).  The Psalmist kicks back on the grass outside Jerusalem and wonders aloud: "When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?" (Ps. 8:3-4).  Part of what he considers in those heavens is the juxtaposition of visible objects like stars with the vast spaciousness of space, the separation of what is from what is not.  Kant said space is relationship, a way to order our experience of reality; Newton, that it was absolute, a part of reality.  I think it's both.  Sitting in my office, I enjoy space as something real I can move around in and also the sense of space as a juxtaposition of the empty with definite objects like walls and desks and windows.

I love space.  When I open Scripture to the Creation account of Genesis 1-3, I'm thankful for the vast spaciousness of the Word that made it all.  Behind the words "God made" lies a rich and infinite domain of interpretation, of room for human exploration.  And when I hear the reassuring words of "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path," (Ps 119:105), I'm glad the Word is the lamp and not the path, that I have a sure guide but a vast landscape through which to find my way.  That's space. That's the kind of space God gives us.

Leaving the space of outer space and the vastness of the landscape of life, I'm thankful for the simple yet profound space of a poem.  No one better illustrates the fulsome nature of space with poetic verse than the spare poetry of William Carlos Williams:

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

(The Red Wheelbarrow).  Writing about the poem in Understanding Poetry, poet Robery Penn Warren said that "[r]eading this poem is like peering at an ordinary object through a pin prick in a piece of cardboard. The fact that the tiny hole arbitrarily frames the object endows it with an exciting freshness that seems to hover on the verge of revelation."  In other words, more is said by what is unsaid than by what is said. 

And consider the short story, the poor stepchild of the literary world.  (Evidence: The Atlantic Monthly, which published short stories by our finest writers for 150 years, abruptly stopped publishing stories in 2005.)  A story like Flannery O'Connor's "The Geranium," which touches in a concrete way on racism, radiates outward into the unknown.  Who was Old Dudley?  What was his early life like?  What will happen to him?  We don't know.  We can imagine.  We can place this snapshot of life in a greater context we supply -- in space.

We may not know if space is matter, but we know it matters.  If we love it, like God does, if we wonder at it and relish its existence, life will open.  We won't be afraid, but free.

Waves can't break without rocks that dissolve into sand
We can't dance without seasons upon which to stand
Eden is a state of rhythm like the sea
Is a timeless change

Turn your eyes to the world where we all sit and dream
Busy dreaming ourselves and each other into being
Dreaming is a state of death, can't you see?
We must live through who we are

If we can sing with the wind song
Chant with thunder
Play upon the lightning
Melodies of wonder
Into wonder life will open

We are children of the river we have named "existence"
Undercurrent and surface pass in the same tense
Nothing is confined except what's in your mind
Every footstep must be true

If we can sing with the wind song
Chant with thunder
Play upon the lightning
Melodies of wonder
Into wonder life will open

(Bruce Cockburn, "Life Will Open," from Sunwheel Dance, 1971)

Fans have turned out for Brian's concert tours in recent years to pay tribute to his iconic stature and to witness the valedictory public gestures of one of rock music's most unlikely survivors.  These events are actually very curious affairs, juxtaposing splendid playing and great songs with the odd sight of the sixty-something-year-old man at center stage, sitting at a piano he doesn't play, singing awkwardly and strenuously with help from a teleprompter, sometimes gesturing inscrutably with his hands.  The thousands of adoring fans clapping and dancing in the audience, however, see nothing at all unusual.  They've found their bliss because they're actually hearing something different, something more poignant and more personal.  They're hearing the songs the way they remember them, at summer camp during their awkward years, or at a party in high school, or while singing along with a car radio on a cross-country family road trip.  They're hearing history in each note that comes out of Brian's mouth, an awareness of what he's been through since he first sang that note, and what they've been through since they first heard it.  They're hearing a voice they identify now, colored with overtones of a voice they identified with then.  They're hearing the voices of Dennis and Carl, and remembering the voices of their own departed loved ones.  They're thinking of the web of tumultuous journeys that somehow reached that moment of convergence on that miraculous day.  As the concert winds to a close, Brian's final plea for "Love and Mercy" is not only granted but embraced, effusively and unconditionally.  He accepts the affections with the grace and humility of am unwilling hero, "just a hard-working guy," as he once said.  He helps us see that what we all really want out of life is as accessible as it is profound, that a little love and mercy can go a long way.  (Philip Lambert, in Inside the Music of Brian Wilson: The Songs, Sounds, and Influences of the Beach Boys' Founding Genius)

When I was 14 or 15, I used to sit in my room and listen to the then black vinyl 33 1/3 rpm recordings of Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys.  While I had heard the surfing, car, and girl songs from childhood (I had older sisters), I never truly connected with the music until the 1971 release of Surf's Up, with its cover art (and Brother Records) logo depicting a stooped rider on horseback, a melancholy juxtaposition with the traditionally effervescent Southern California music.  I was perilously deep in adolescence, trying to understand my place in things, wondering if I'd ever have and keep a girlfriend, all the usual concerns of adolescent boys, and so the not so happy music of Surf's Up spoke to me, especially one particularly morose but beautiful song called "Til I Die," a Brian Wilson compilation that, yes, had the ocean in it but no girls, cars, or surfing.  There was a beautiful sadness to the words, Brian singing over and over again in multi-layered vocals

I'm a cork on the ocean
Floating over the raging sea
How deep is the ocean?
I lost my way

I'm a rock in a landslide
Rolling over the mountainside
How deep is the valley?
It kills my soul

I'm a leaf on a windy day
Pretty soon I'll be blown away
How long will the wind blow?

Until I die.

Those words seemed to fit perfectly with the sad horseman on the cover and the caked and dried up lake bed pictured in the inner sleeve.  And they described how I felt at times and, no doubt, how many teenagers still feel at times.  At 15, some days time seemed to stand still, and I'd say "how long?" like the Psalmist at times, and other times fleeting moments of pure joy seemed to rush past.

From Surf's Up I began to work my way back, discovering the sunnier and beautiful Sunflower release of 1970, and then further back into albums released in my tween years and unknown to me, like Pet Sounds, Smiley Smile, Wild Honey, Friends, and 20/20.  I became aware of the mythical lost album, Smile, and sought out bootlegs and various interpretations of its rise and demise.  In that process, I felt like I came to know Brian Wilson, to see his genius and yet the deadening effects of his abusive father and the strength sapping effects of alcohol, drugs, and record labels who cared only about not messing with the formula for success.  There were years of inactivity, of sad and uninspired Beach Boys albums, and then occasional bursts of creative activity, only to see Brian succumb again to some new difficulty.  Only in the last decade has he reached a more stable, productive, and contented position in life.  And I'm amazed.  The first time I saw him in concert I was astounded that he could even walk onto the stage and face an audience.  And as I've seen him five or six times over the last few years, I've watched him relax, enjoy himself, and look more and more normal, that is, less scared.

You might say he's iconic for many fans, including me.  There's a lot I don't mean by this.  I don't mean he's the best performer, musician, or singer I've ever heard.  I don't mean I idolize him or worship the ground he walks on.  I've met him several times and yet never ask for his autograph (which he would willingly give) because I care nothing for it and it seems an indignity to even ask for it.  What I do mean is what Philip Lambert says in the quote above.  Essentially, seeing Brian Wilson I see my life.  I see grace at work.  Given the way Brian treated his body, he should be dead.  In fact, his two brothers and his parents are dead.  Or he could be in a mental institution, suffering his own personal demons.  I look through him to points in my life that were turning points, hinges on which my destiny swung, and I know that my life could at many points have taken a different trajectory, skidding off the road, floundering in a back alley somewhere.  That it didn't is by God's grace.

So when I go to a Brian Wilson concert, I see myself, and then I see more of God.  My overwhelming feeling is of gratitude --- that I'm alive, that Brian's alive, that I'm not a cork floating on an angry sea, a rock careening down a mountainside, a leaf blown here and there by a random wind.  Even when he's awkward, saying mildly inappropriate things, gesticulating oddly, and so on, I'm only reminded of my own awkwardness, my lack of social grace, and my discomfort in certain settings.  In some ways, I'm still an awkward kid, and so is he.

When my partner Tony and I produced Making God Smile: An Independent Artists' Tribute to the Songs of Beach Boy Brian Wilson back in 2002, we released it on his 60th birthday, a present to him.  I was amazed at the love for the man, all the artists contributing their songs, writing about him as one who they appreciated and felt an affinity with.  It would embarrass him to read all that, to know how these younger musicians felt about him when he had never met them.  For many of them, his music formed a large part of the soundtrack for their lives.  Mine too.

I don't know how many concerts Brian has left in him, but I'll catch as many as I am able, riding a wave of emotion right on through that final song, like an altar call, when he sings "love and mercy/that's all we need tonight," and we say Amen.  And when the lights go down for the last time, I'll miss him, and yet I can hope that, after a time, we'll all see him and hear him again, no longer a cork, or a rock, or a leaf, but a whole man, restored, recreated. 

Surf's Up, Brian.

When I heard a couple months ago that Brian Wilson would be previewing a brand new orginal work in a series of concerts at the Royal Festival Hall in London, I wanted to go. . . badly. But, of course, one doesn't just hop across the Atlantic for a concert! Nevertheless, I snagged some great seats for a show and figured that if I could combine it with business I would go, and if not, well there's always Ebay right? As it turns out, I do have business in Europe that I was able to work around this concert, and so my business partner and I are going!

Here's what the official press release says about the new work:

In September 2007 legendary writer, producer, arranger and performer of some of the most unforgettable and inspirational music in rock history, Brian Wilson, returns to the Royal Festival Hall, his “spiritual home away from home” for six nights. The concert repertoire will include the world premiere of a brand-new work. Commissioned by Southbank Centre as part of its opening season, Wilson reveals that the piece “is called That Lucky Old Sun (a Narrative)”, and as he describes it, “will consist of five ‘rounds’ with interspersed spoken word.”

Brian Wilson teamed with Van Dyke Parks, his old ‘sidekick’ and lyricist behind Smile, over the past year on the narratives for a new album. The piece features ten songs and five narratives which will be interrupted by That Lucky Old Sun, the narrator telling the story. The five narratives are cameos on life and the heartbeat of Los Angeles.

OK, so that's intriguing. Spoken word? I'll admit, I'm unsure what to think about that, but as I enjoy poetry I'll give it a chance. Brian's last solo album, Gettin' In Over My Head, was a bit disappointing, with mostly reworked and unreleased material from some Eighties sessions and a number of superstar appearances (like Elton John and Paul McCartney) that did not save the record.

For this reason, I was pleasantly surprised to hear one of the new songs recently released on his website, entitled "Midnight's Another Day." It's the best original work from Brian (and lyricist Van Dyke Parks) since 1998's Imagination. Give it a listen here. Also, here are the lyrics (which you will not find on the website:

Midnight's Another Day

Lost my way
The sun grew dim
Stepped over grace
And stood in sin

Lost in the dark
No shades of gray
Until I found
Midnight's another day

Ah, it reminds me the melancholy of "Til I Die," off the Surf's Up album. And isn't that an interesting line: "Stepped over grace/ And stood in sin?" I'm looking forward to hearing the whole work and, subsequently, the album.

Well, enjoy the song. And if you'd be interested in two tickets for the show on September 15th, email me soon.

I'm always amazed not only at the quantity of music in the marketplace but also at the gems one can discover in the independent marketplace, that is, band-distributed records. Lately I've been listening to two releases that I think are refreshing, both of the power-pop genre:

Junebug -- Fourth: This North Wales-based band is delightful, and unknown. This simple, no-frills band produced CD-R contains some older material (released in anticipation of their official new release in 2008.) Influences include 60's bands (The Beatles, The Beach Boys), new wave (Split Enz, XTC) and indie (The Stone Roses, Teenage Fanclub). I'm a sucker for jangly guitars and Beach Boys stle harmonies, so this one was a no-brainer for me!

Seaside Stars --- The Magic of Stereo: A Berlin band with a Beach Boys/Teenage Fanclub sound, I love the beautful guitar pop and lush vocals on this record. I'm so attracted to this music that I have a difficult tiem making it to the lyrics to find out what they are singing about!

Check out these recordings at the best distributor of power-pop: Not Lame Records.

It's not that I've been a huge fan of John Vanderslice, as I have not heard too much of his work.  However, the current release from his new Emerald City recording on Barsuk, "White Dove" (video here), is both incredible and scary.  Musically, "White Dove" is both melodic and noisy, a perfect vehicle for the song's emotional catapult from a pleasant conversation with a new neighbor to anger, rage, and sadness.  It's a song that lays bare the emotion felt when we witness some unspeakable crime or atrocity and a desire for justice rises in us, and then we wonder what to do with the emotion.

On "White Dove", Vanderslice sets up a contrast between that symbol for peace and the troubled, violent content of the verses. Vanderslice's narrator meets his new neighbor and sitting on her veranda asks a simple question-- "Do you have any children?"   This is the precipice of change in the song.  Grief streams over the neighbor's face. She tells the story of her daughter, who disappeared and was brutally murdered. "It's not about mercy/ It's not about tears anymore," the neighbor says, and Vanderslice must grapple with both her desire for righteous vengeance and the human capacity to commit such unspeakable acts. "What are you thinking of?" he concludes, unable to find resolution.

It's an emotion that Christians are familiar with and should not suppress or ignore.  Reading the Psalms we know the anger, righteous indignation, and borderline despair of the writer at times.  And yet justice is for God to mete out, and we lay our anger and desire for justice before Him, not taking it into our own hands.  I don't know the neighbor's grief.  I don't know whether or how I could forgive such an act.  But I hope and trust I would take the anger and grief to the One who says "Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled."  And I hope, like the Psalmist, I wouldn't hold back but would lay bare how I feel to the only One who can help me.

Emerald City is the most emotionally-charged record I have heard since Rosanne Cash's Black Cadillac.  It hurts to listen sometimes.  And yet the beautiful pop music takes some of the sting out of the lyrics.  Give it a listen.  And then read the Psalms for a light to guide you out of the emotional quandary in which Vanderslice leaves you.

As you will surmise from the title, this is the third in a series of laments over the digitization of our music, the movement from sound associated with something tangible, the vinyl record or compact disc, to the intangible, mere sounds captured in a digital and portable format. Today I'm sad over the loss of tangible objects --- sound recordings --- which embody and hold particular and rich memories.

Lately my listening has focused on a favorite singer-songwriter of the Seventies, Jackson Browne. I need not remind you of Browne's talent. Listen to The Pretender, a record that qualifies for my Essential Listening roster (check out the sidebar). I can go on about Browne's talent some other time, but today I'm interested in the record as an object, or artifact, something which embodies and holds cultural memories. Now some memories are more important than others, meaning some artifacts are more culturally important than others, but for each of us our own private artifacts serve an important role in preserving memories and, with memory, a sense of God's providence, His outworking of a good plan in our lives.

But on to the memory. It's 1976 and I'm enrolled in an institution of higher learning here in the South. Since ninth grade I've been collecting records, trading records, and listening to records (the vinyl ones). And so this freshman, though without much in the way of other possessions, lugged a record collection of around 300 albums with me to college, one of which was Jackson Browne's The Pretender. I shared the record with a girl I met that year, and she asked if she could borrow it to listen to with her roommates --- four other freshmen girls. Reluctant as I was to part with it, I did, as I would have done anything to endear myself to these women. Two weeks later I'm invited for a meal. The record is playing, and Karen advises that it has been playing non-stop for two weeks and "thank youe SO much for loaning it to us." When the record stops, I lift it to turn it to the other side, and I swear I could see through the record it was so badly worn! I restored it to the turntable, left it, dated one of the women for a few months, had a hot date with two of them after which they lectured me on the proper way to treat women, and have never, never seen any of them ever again. That goes for my Jackson Browne record as well. I replaced the vinyl with CD, and every time I pick up that jewelcase and look at that cover, I'm reminded of all that and more, not just events, but people, feelings, even conversations. And my then poor, sad love life.

But that's not the end of my experience with Jackson Browne records. Fast forward to law school. I'm a first year student living with a first year medical student and first year MBA student. One day I'm devastated to learn that Hold Out, a later Jackson Browne record, is badly warped and unplayable. (Well, you can play it, but Browne sounds like he's yodeling on it.) I have an idea. I take the record into the kitchen. I heat the oven to 250. I figure I'll warm it up and bend it back to shape. By the way, this probably ranks up there with one of the stupidest things I have ever, ever done. (But then, I'm a lawyer, not a rocket scientist.) I fried my Jackson Browne record that day. I had a mess to clean up in the oven. And it seemed like such a brillant plan. So, every time I see Hold Out (#2), I have to smile, and all the embarrassment of that moment (can you be embarassed when no one is around to see it?) comes back. I remember my roommates, studying for the Bar exam, my smallish room, and my fishbowl of a world, all because I have a tangible artifact that carries those memories. I can still smell that cooking record.

In one of his last memoirs, entitled The Eyes of the Heart: A Memoir of the Lost and Found, Frederick Buechner takes us into his library, the place where he writes, the place that holds his memories. Using the books, photographs, and memorabilia of the room, he takes us on a journey through his life, inviting long-dead family members and friends in for discussions, ruminating on the meaning of life, and relishing the grace God has shown to him. He calls his memory room The Magic Kingdom, his haven and sanctuary:

What is magic about the Magic Kingdom is that if you look at it through the right pair of eyes it points to a kingdom more magic still that comes down out of heaven adorned as a bride adorned for her husband. The one who sits upon its throne says, "Behold, I make all things new," and the streets of it are of gold like unto clear glass, and each of its gates is a single pearl.

I guess that's what I'm doing now, building a Magic Kingdom of artifacts brimming with memories, reminders of a time and place I once inhabited, and promises of a future Kingdom. And I need more than an IPod full of disembodied sounds to do that. I need the real thing.

I made a discovery. I was in Borders recently, making my way through their various listening stations, when I listened to Lewis Taylor's The Lost Album. I was captivated by it and stood there and listened to all of it. Then I bought it.

I had never heard of Lewis Taylor. Yet I knew that I had heard music like this before. I thought of Lindsey Buckingham, Todd Rundgren, and Brian Wilson, just to name a few obvious influences. Lewis has a clear, pure voice, and the sound is a pure pop delight --- multilayered harmonies, intricate arrangements, and poignant lyrics. Listening to "Lets Hope Nobody Finds Us," the Brian Wilson influence is unmistakable. It's practically a one-man band as well (a la Todd Rundgren).

So who is Lewis Taylor? Apparently 11 years ago, in 1996, Taylor had a major label debut that caused him to be annointed "The Man Who Would Save Soul." He was compared to Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye, and even Prince. Quite a title given that Taylor is an Englishman of Jewish heritage! Of course the label wanted more of the same. Instead, Taylor delivered this pop album. It was promptly shelved. Ultimately, the label dropped him. Truly then, this is The Lost Album.

Hacktone Records is to be commended for bringing this lost jewel to market. A bonus is the three acoustic tracks, stripped-down versions of songs on his 1996 debut. Listening to them, you can understand why he earned the title he did and why his fans might want more of the same. The packaging of the album is also interesting. A very thick gatefold package hearkens back to the LP gatefolds of the Seventies. Just like the songs, the packaging works on your memory, conjuring up associations from that era and its music.

Last year Taylor announced his retirement from the music industry. Well, let's hope for a comeback --- soon.

OK, I admit it. I'm a little obsessive-compulsive when it comes to the Beach Boys or Brian Wilson. I buy it all. After all, I bought Pet Sounds at least five times! And today, I bought the newest Beach Boys release, Warmth of the Sun, a career-spanning album of 28 tracks culled from the Boys pre- and post- Pet Sounds efforts. Two things attracted me about this collection. First, six of the tracks are in stereo mixes for the first time (see below). I'd buy it just to hear "Let Him Run Wild" as it should be heard. (Purists may take me to task on this, as Brian heard and released it in mono; being partially deaf in one ear, that's how he heard it.) My, it's beautiful.

The other attraction was the fact that the living Beach Boys themselves selected the tracks. That's a minor miracle: they agreed. Mike Love said he and Brian and Al gathered for a kind of roundtable discussion at Brian's house in L.A.'s Bel Air section of Beverly Hills and actually agreed on something! I can imagine Brian's wife Marilyn saying to him before Mike got there: "Just keep it light, honey." These guys rarely speak. Al even sued Mike over who could use the Beach Boys name. (He lost.) Their history is fraught with disagreement. But perhaps age may bring a little grace to these long and difficult relationships.

Here's the track list:

01. All Summer Long (New Stereo Mix)
02. Catch A Wave
03. Hawaii
04. Little Honda
05. 409
06. It's OK
07. You're So Good To Me (New Stereo Mix)
08. Then I Kissed Her (New Stereo Mix)
09. Kiss Me, Baby
10. Please Let Me Wonder (New Stereo Mix)
11. Let Him Run Wild (New Stereo Mix)
12. The Little Girl I Once Knew
13. Wendy (New Stereo Mix)
14. Disney Girls (1957)
15. Forever
16. Friends'
17. Break Away
18. Why Do Fools Fall In Love
19. Surf's Up
20. Feel Flows
21. All This Is That
22. Til I Die
23. Sail On, Sailor
24. Cool, Cool Water
25. Don't Go Near The Water
26. California Saga (On My Way To Sunny California)
27. California Dreamin
28. The Warmth Of The Sun

Every one of these songs holds memories for me. For many, I can remember holding the LP (vinyl rocks!) and examining the sleeve and liner notes, even recalling where I was when I first heard it. For example, I was probably no more than ten when I first heard "All Summer Long" and "Wendy." I was staying at my cousin's house and not to happy about it. But he did have an old record player and a dog-eared copy of the album All Summer Long. It was pretty scratched, but when I played it I was captivated by the energy of the songs and the harmonies. I just stood there looking at the record going round and round on theturntable. But actually, at ten, I could not have told you why I like it.

Or take Carl Wilson's "Feel Flows" or Brian Wilson's "Till I Die," both from the Surf's Up record released in the mid-Seventies. These beautiful songs are also full of melancholy, not at all like those girls-surf-car songs of the Sixties, great as they were. I remember lying on the tile floor of my high school bedroom and running through these over and over again. They put me in a nice teenage funk (which nows seems to have infected my kids)!

But enough. You need to hear a collection of great songs, maybe not all the top hits (buy 2004's Sounds of Summer for that), but a great hand-picked collection nonetheless. I'm reminded once again why The Beach Boys are the great American band.

P.S. Check out this great blog devoted to the record. It has original podcasts of the band as well as videos. Very cool.

Did I really just say just a few days ago that Fountains of Wayne's Traffic and Weather was the best album of 2007 thus far? I did. . . but that was before I heard Mavis Staples' We'll Never Turn Back. Staples was one of the voices of The Staple Singers, a band that became, through their friendship with Martin Luther King, the singing voice of the civil rights movement. Over 40 years ago, Mavis herself spent the night in a West Memphis jail at the behest of a racist cop. She reflects on that and other events of those days, connecting the civil rights movement then to, for example, the marginalization of blacks in the wake of Hurrican Katrina.

I had some rare time this evening along the interstate to listen straight through the record, twice, and I'm knocked over by the power of it --- faith leading to action. Mavis is a believer, dedicating her album to "My Heavenly Father - To God Be the Glory," and noting in her liner notes that "for us [The Staple Singers], and for many in the civil rights movement, we looked to the church for inner strength and to help make positive changes. That seems to be missing today." The album is a positive and yet chillingly honest challenge to biblically-rooted social action. It's mix of traditional tunes, like "Down In Mississippi," 'This Little Light of Mine," and "Jesus on the Mainline," along with originals coauthored with producer and guitar virtuoso Ry Cooder. The songs prod us, admonish us, and encourage us to put feet to faith.

And the music? Not a single klunker here. The sound is authentic and rootsy, Cooder providing some snaky electric guitar and thumping percussion, Mavis with her deep, throaty vocal, backed by the original Freedom Singers and Ladysmith Black Mombazo. It's gospel-soul. And it's authenticity was reassuring on the interstate, a corridor which seems so plastic and homogeneous with its fast food restaurants, gas stations, and big box stores.

In "99 And 1/2," Mavis sums it up: "My God is a freedom God/ He'll make a way for you. . . ./ I'm running, trying to make a 100, but 99 and 1/2 just won't do." This is no 99 and 1/2 album. This is a 100. Give it a spin. Listen to my favorite, "My Own Eyes," here.

Though we are only a little over four months into 2007, my current favorite for album of the year is Fountain of Wayne's new release, Traffic and Weather. FOW has brilliant penchant for writing the infectious pop song, and while they are not alone in this, there are a couple things that make this a standout album. For one, lyrical narratives here --- stories of love and loneliness --- are rich with such specificity of character and place. For example, in "Someone to Love," we meet Seth Shapiro, the lonely lawyer who calls his Mom in the evenings and eats alone, and Beth MacKenzie, who retouches photos for a magazine, two young professionals who almost meet and yet don't. (By the way, you can check out the video for the song here.) Or there's Yolanda Hayes, who works behind a window at the Department of Motor Vehicles, an object of affection for our narrator, "behind Window B, explaining patiently how she needs to see six forms of ID." Or even "Michael and Heather at the Baggage Claim," exhausted, waiting, wondering if they'll ever get home again. Mundane yet particular, the lyrics offer a slice of authenticity from modern life. Listening to this cross-section of stories, it's refreshing not to hear any obligatory political statements or heavy-handed philosophizing. And yet I can't help but feel the album is pregnant with a big albeit unstated question: Is this all? Is this all life is? Isn't there more? In post-modern terms, is there a meta-narrative, an overarching story that gives mening to it all? That's a great question for a post-modern album to ask. And yet I love the great mix of affection and parody for the characters, served up with wit. In other words, I love that it makes us ask the big question.

The other thing that makes for a great record is the musical range of it. There are all kinds of tempos and forms of instrumentation, and yet it all hangs together as one. As their press bio truthfully says, in the new record FOW covers "early 60's jangle, late 60's psychedelia, 70's classic rock, 80's New Wave, 90's alt-rock, and contemporary pop in their own inimitable style — this time against an even richer, more varied sonic backdrop of lush harmony vocal stacks, staccato horn blasts, pulsating analog keyboards, slinky bass lines, and deep grooves. There's even some banjo in there somewhere, just in case. And, of course, lots of guitars...chiming, crunching, strumming, and occasionally twanging." For once, a band bio is exactly on target.

I suspect Traffic and Weather is one album that will remain in my Current Listening List in the Sidebar for quite some time. Give it a spin, will you?

In a post I made here over a year ago, I lamented the advent of the digital revolution, that is, the rise of digitally downloaded music and even digital books. But I'm not sure my dismay at the lost tactile pleasure of holding a CD and perusing its liner notes really got to the root of my pain, to the sense of loss I feel.

In a recent special collectors issue, the British music magazine Mojo addressed "The Greatest Album Covers of All Time." For me, turning the glossy full-color pages of this oversize issue was a trip through time as well as a visual delight. I had almost forgotten how much has been lost, first with the advent of the CD, and now with the trend toward digital music downloads. You see, I can never can never quite get over the fact that when albums were really albums, you really had something. When I download a song, I do not feel that I have anything, really. It doesn't seem real or significant.

Let's say you're in my eighth grade class. You've just finished lunch at my junior high school and you make your way to the courtyard where groups of kids cluster. There's girls over there along with a few defectors, guys who have gone over to the dark side, actually talking with girls. There's two or three losers and loners, by themselves, like unfortunate untouchables in the sometimes cruel world of high school. There's freaks -- well, let's call them emerging freaks, as they are not old enough to be real freaks with long hair and weird clothes and mannerisms (it's the early Seventies, people), even though that one, Davis Zeigler, did tell me he was trying to expand the cosmic consciousness of his deskchair. (I'm not sure what that was about.) Wait. Who are those guys lugging 10 to 15 albums around under arm, huddled together poring over the album art and liner notes? That'd be me and my fellow audiophiles. I had something. I really had something, back in the days when albums were albums, when you had at least 576 square inches of visual imagery to closely examine when you bought a record. You see what we've lost? Looking at a CD is like looking at a thumbprint of a person. I want the whole thing, something big and grand.

Carrying around those albums I knew I had the real thing. I not only had music, I had concept, a visual statement, a band bio (albeit abstact), identity, community and more -- much more than a song on an Ipod. I had something. When I looked at Peter Blake's surreal cover for The Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, I knew I was getting more than just music. I was buying into a statement about life and music. I knew more than just a song. I remember so many of them: Jefferson Airplane's Bark, which came in a grocery bag for Pete's sake, or Jethro Tull's Thick As A Brick, which looked like a very unusual newspaper, Grand Funk Railroad's E Pluribus Funk which was round -- something we'd never seen before! Then came the psychedelic covers, like The Beatles Revolver, designed by Klaus Voorman, or the red velvet feel of the Bee Gees (pre-disco) Odessa album,The Rolling Stones' Their Satanic Majesties Request, with the three-dimensional photo on the front. My, they were great days, with so much to look at, a hey-day of artistic control of product we have not seen since.

But back to my point: when you had an album then, you really had something. You could touch it, feel it, look at it, and finally listen to it. The album was like an icon of the band, a window into who they were. The band had a full pallette of color and sound from which to make a statement. As I huddled there with my buddies, deciphering what in the world the artwork on Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy album (home of "Stairway to Heaven") meant, I was a part of something bigger than me, something transcendant, something spiritual, something you could touch. We've lost that now.

When God gave us His revelation, it was incarnational and multidimensional. The Ten Commandments came on tablets of stone, the words etched by God Himself. The Law and the Prophets came on parchments, scrolls, things that you could touch and see and even smell. And God's final revelation came in a three-dimensional living breathing man, that you could see, hear, touch, and (I assume) smell. The Gospel is so deeply inacarnational, taking shape in the stuff of the physical world, in particular things and particular people that you can see and hear and touch.

And that's why I like albums, the real things. They're little incarnations, something you can interact with in a multi-sensory way. They're some artist's gospel incarnate, the real thing.

Now maybe you're under thirty and don't know what in the world the big deal is. Well, I think you really do know the sense that something fully incarnate is better than just the idea of something or the single sense of something, sort of like a Starbucks coffee -- the taste, the smell, the warmth, and the experience is far better than just the taste of the drink. Do you understand? It's the way we're wired.

And finally --- Sam, if you're reading this, will you mail me back Traffic's Shoot Out At the Fantasy Factory? I mean, come on, it's been 33 years since you borrowed it. Please. I need the real thing.

This has been a tough week for me, with two family members sick and much going on at work and travel to boot. A couple of nights ago, returning from out of town after dark, I was weary. Before leaving I had absent-mindedly tossed a recent (I thought) CD from The Innocence Mission in the car to listen to, though I did not get to it until I was on my way home. It was a beautiful evening. The rain which had fallen had cleansed the air of pollen, and I rode with the sunroof open, enjoying the air and ocassionally (if briefly) looking up through the open roof to a waxing moon positioned just above. I heard this:

Hang my head low, so low.
Don't see me only as I am but
see me how I long to be.
Shining like a flowering tree
under a gray Pennsylvania sky.
Look for me as you go by.
Hang my head so low, so low.
Every burden shall be lifted.
Every stone upon your back slide into the sea.
It's me for you and you for me.

("Look for Me As You Go By," by Don Peris)

I don't know how better to describe the songs of Innocence Mission but as songs to quiet the spirit. The arrangements are spare --- nothing more than acoustic guitar, bass, very light percussion, and some ocassional strings. The lyrics are full of space, like good poetry, which is what they are. In this album from 2003, Befriended, Karen writes as she always does of home, family, and faith. There is nothing dramatic about any of this, but at the same time the feeling that abides in the record is one of joy. That must be what it is, because Befriended buoyed my spirit, and I felt like maybe my car was cruising along suspended on a cushion just millimeters above the asphalt.

Innocence Mission is, quite simply, Karen and Don Peris and a friend, Mike Bitts. Some of the simple authenticity of the music can perhaps be traced to the Peris's decision to remain at home and record at home, in the Amish countryside of Lancaster, Pennsylvania rather than Nashville, New York, or Los Angeles. Perhaps it's the Amish simplicity that shows here (though the Peris's are Catholic).

On Befriended, she writes of the loss of her mother, her best friend ("I Never Knew You From the Sun"), her brother ("One For Sorrow, Two For Joy"), or simply about giving up sorrow for life ("Walking Around"). I say the album is about joy, not happiness, because the joy underlies the very real sorrow in some of the songs, perhaps the feeling of loss for her mother. But honestly, no sprightly pop music could give me more hope than this soundtrack for a weary highway ride.

Returning home, I was surprised to find that Befriended wasn't actually the newest release. I missed the release last week of We Walked In Song, another beautiful offering from this band and one much in the same vein of Befriended. On my walk today, I listened (seemed appropriate, a "walk in song") and immediately appreciated the songs. If there's one theme on We Walked In Song, it's the title of the first song, "Brotherhood of Man," and its words:

All day, since your haircut in the morning,
you have looked like a painting, even more than usual.
We are in the wind, planting maples.
We meet an older man who seems to know
I miss my dad.
And he smiles through the limbs.
We talk easily with him
until the rain begins.
This is the brotherhood of man.

I never can say what I mean
but you will understand,
coming through clouds on the way.
This is the brotherhood of man.

("This Is the Brotherhood of Man," Karen Peris).

Listening to that song, a very simple song of shared moments with strangers, I know exactly what she means, even though she says she never can say what she means. The spareness of her words reminds me of Emily Dickinson's poetry --- simple, yet deep.

I recommend a healthy dose of The Innocence Mission. If you listen, you might feel befriended, or you might realize more deeply the brotherhood of man. But certainly, it'd be difficult to miss the joy that simmers underneath the words.

My friend and Pop Collective business partner Dr. Tony Shore (the "Dr." is an honorary title, sort of like the one Idi Amin gave himself) has produced the first installment of the Obvious Pop Podcast, 35 minutes of power-pop music from the likes of Jellyfish, Electric Light Orchestra, Fountains of Wayne, and more, with his humorous narration. I particularly like the original theme song by Ian Tanner. Give it a listen and check out his blog while you're at it here.

Tony was General Manager of my Silent Planet Records during its day, which he came to from a background in radio and label promotion. He brings some professionalism to the podcast that is sorely lacking in many homemade podcasts.

Now, maybe I'll have to get my own podcast. . . .

Pop music is literally replete with highway songs, probably because musicians spend so much time on the road. And even the ones that don't actually say the word "highway" are often about life on the road. The Eagles sang "standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, such a fine sight to see. . ." ("Take It Easy") and I wanted to go to Winslow and see what it looked like, even though I could not drive at the time and had not yet been west of the Mississippi. America's singing "Ventura Highway" and I wanted to know what that road was like, what it felt like to be on the open road, somewhere exotic (I thought) like Los Angeles, seeing new things and just driving, driving, driving. I suspect these early Seventies era songs really come to me now because of the intensity of longing and desire I had for wheels then, the sense that I was about to break free into a completely different level of existence once I had keys, car, and gas.

I purchased a car when I was barely 15 1/2, secured a learner's permit, and began to drive --- with my parents, that is. It wasn't an ordinary car. It was a 1972 Chevrolet Camaro, a very fast car for a kid who just graduated from a bike. However, I had already been sufficiently scared to death to be cured of any need for speed. My friend John secured his license a bit earlier than me. One night we were out in his mother's car and he decided to take the car through a four-way intersection that had a nice bump in it at 90 mph to see if the wheels would leave the ground. I think they did. All my fantasies of speed ended right there. I left such fantasies to the harmless world of music and drove my car like an old man. I took no risks.

And yet, the highway beckoned. At that time when you turned 16 and had a driver's permit, you could drive with any licensed driver. So, on midnight of the day of my 16th birthday, John and I climbed into my Camaro, backed it out of the driveway, and hit the road. We took a circular route through six counties, driving over 250 miles that night. What adventure! The names of the towns rolled by --- Madison, Reidville, Mebane, Siler City, Liberty, and so on, each name seemingly exotic and never before experienced. I felt free, grown up, excited, almost as if I could do anything. It was pure adolescent glee, for awhile at least.

Even now, though, that sense of wanderlust inhabits me. I dream over maps and plan for excursions. I think I love thinking about leaving home more than actually leaving home, and indeed one of the joys of leaving home is the thinking about coming home to the familiar. I'm restless. I want to go. I want to come home. The highway isn't fulfilling enough. Home is not quite all I want either. What a quandry!

And yet, what a God-ordained place in which to be --- content, but restless, having much, but wanting more.

The highway metaphor is, I was glad to learn, found in Scripture as well. In Isaiah 35: 8-10, the prophet presents a picture of God's chosen ones, the redeemed, returning to a restored Zion, a picture that spoke to the Israelites of a restoration to their land and to Jerusalem and also speaks of a coming Kingdom. "And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness. The unclean will not journey on it; it will be for those that walk in that Way; wicked fools will not go about on it. No lion will be there, nor will any ferocious beast get up on it; they will not be found there. But only the redeemed will walk there, and the ransomed of the Lord will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away."

It's not just Isaiah. Jeremiah implores God's people to "[s]et up road signs; put up guideposts. Take note of the highway, the road that you take" (Jer. 31:20). Matthew tells us that "narrow [is] the road that leads to life" (Mt. 7:14).

When I hit the road, when I drool over maps with their red and blue and black lines, their names of towns and cities, the landmarks, and the hints of topography, I suspect the restlessness is really symptomatic of the fact that I'm still longing for the place where I can really rest, a place where I am really Home and yet a place where there is something new around every turn. I can hear that longing when Gram Parsons sang "Hickory Wind," stuck in a hotel room, on the road, longing for the pines and oaks and hickory trees of South Carolina, longing for home: "In South Carolina there are many tall pines/ I remember the oak tree that we used to climb/ But now when I'm lonesome, I always pretend/ That I'm getting the feel of hickory wind."

The Way of Holiness? I've got the wheels dead ahead, my map laid out before me, my wife beside me, my kids in the back seat. And John, I've got it wide open. I want to see if maybe, just maybe, the wheels will leave the ground this time. It's a fearsome thing to be here. Next stop: Gladness and joy. We're laughing all the way, and in the corner of my eye, in the rear view mirror, the dim lights of Sorrow and Sighing are fading, fading. And not one single "wicked fool" to be found on this road.

I can't wait to get there. I'm going Home.

In these days of individualistic, self-prescribed spiritual experience, you can have Jesus any way you like him, pulling from Scripture what you like of him or fashioning him into a rebel, an iconoclast, a poor smuck, or a misunderstood anti-hero. You can literally mold and shape him as you will. That's basically what's going on in Ricke Lee Jones' new release, The Sermon on Exposition Boulevard --- an extremely interesting foray by Jones into the world of Jesus (well, and Elvis too).

It begins with Peter Astamoff and Lee Cantalon, two visual artist/poets living meagerly in Culver City, California, just getting by. The guys dream up a spoken word project (you know how well those sell!) called The Words. Only the boys don't collectively have the funds to record it. Enter a friend, Marc, who allows them to use his studio on (where else but) Exposition Boulevard, and the guys go to work. They want it to sound pretty, but not too pretty, "broken " in fact, and definitely all about "longing." (How many artists make longing the sin qua non of their work?). The guys record sounds around the LA area, have long conversations with a homeless man (their collaborator) and then decide to ask Rickie Lee Jones over to read some lines for them. Rickie begins to read, says "I can't do this," and then begins to improvise by singing the words. Waala! Art is born. Brilliant moment after moment follow. Spiritual bliss. She's channeling Van Morrison's mystical Astral Weeks. And in the end the boys meet their goal they say, " to distance the words of Jesus from a traditional or religious enclosure." I'll say. (Read more of that story here.)

I don't want to like this, but the thing is, I do. Mostly that is. I agree Jesus needs to be rescued from the religionists. If the authors of these lyrics had stuck to the words of scripture, that would have been a rescue --- a rescue from the purely human Jesus of the liberal church, from the Jesus that sounds like a card-carrying liberal democrat (as well as a Republican), the Jesus of tolerance for tolerance sake (read the scripture and you can see that Jesus was not too tolerant of some people.) The problem is that here is another attempt to recast Jesus in our own image, tailor him to our political sensibilities, use him for our purposes, even if its just spiritual experience. So I applaud the effort, but lament the end.

That being said, I find this music interesting, a mostly melodic acoustic rock vibe with some experimental detours (some of which are like fingernails on a chalkboard). Rickie has an interesting, soulful voice, and the use of repetition (just like Van Morrison) is effective and emotional. "Gethsemane" captures the agony of Jesus in the Garden, contemplating death, his friends sleeping. It's effective in conveying the deep emotion of that night. "Falling Up" is a rocking number about I don't know what if not the call that Jesus had on people, His effect. "Lamp of the Body" is a plea to avoid darkness and have pure motives. "Where I Like It Best" ask "how do you pray in a world like this?" The song is an urging toward sincere prayer, not the prayers "of the people on TV who close their eys and say Let Us Pray." And then there we are ridng around Heaven in "Elvis' Cadillac" with "Janis Joplin working at the bar."

Well, it's quite a ride, but in the end, I'm not near as bothered by this as I thought I'd be. Maybe Jesus needed rescuing. I just don't know if Rickie is the one to do it. But I bought the record. I like it.

Brooks Williams is a stunning blues-soaked, rhythmic, and soulful guitarist. His musical vision spans continents and genres – blues, slide, swingin’ jazz, fingerstyle – and manifests itself in a hybrid of funky chords, walking bass lines, and fiery leads. With influences as diverse as John Fahey, Michael Bloomfield, and Joseph Spence, it is pleasantly difficult to pin Williams down. He’s a guitarist, a songwriter, and an interpreter.

Brooks is, as I have discovered, a man in love with the guitar and all musical styles. I do not even remember how I came to know of Brooks, but I was immediately drawn not to just his guitar but to his songwriting, a style rich in metaphor and sprinkled with spiritual allusions and downright joy -- a joy which must bubble up from the person I later met, an artist with the most winsome of personalities and evenness of attitudes. He is a pleasure to listen to, talk with, or be taught by. I've often thought that the only thing that keeps him from songwriting fame is the pure impossibility of doing everything well: he loves the guitar so much it's near impossible to love songwriting with the same intensity.

Dead Sea Cafe - Brooks Williams

When I learned that all of Brooks' albums on Green Linnet Records had fallen out of print, I was determined to do my best to resurrect them. What I settled for was licensing select tracks, chosen by Brooks, and releasing them with some newly recorded versions for an album entitled Dead Sea Cafe. I love every song on this record, from the metaphoric "Seven Sisters" to the joyful and direct "We Will Dance Someday." The album is a testimony to the fact that Brooks is a superb songwriter as well as guitarist.

Download and listen to Brooks' "Wanderer's Song for a taste of what he is like here: Wanderer's Song"

Skiffle-Bop -- Brooks Williams

With Skiffle-Bop, Brooks showed once again that he could write songs as good or better than those in his Green Linnet catalog. Though Brooks signed with the respected indie label Signature Sounds for this release, Silent Planet was able to release it in the Christian market. I can't say that it was well-received, not because it wasn't good but simply because the Christian market by its nature requires songs with overt statements of Christian belief, and while Brooks has such beliefs he rarely wears them on his sleeve, preferring songs more subtle and mysterious. The cover photo, with what appear to be two dead or somulant dogs, probably did not help either. But I like it.

Listen to my favorite cut, "Love Came Down," here: "Love Came Down"

All payments are securely made through Paypal.  First-class mail shipping is included in the cost, and shipment will be made within 48 hours from ordering.  If you are not fully satisfied with any CD you receive from OutWalking, please email me for a full refund.

In the music industry, like many businesses, there are often unsung and even uncredited musicians that lie behind great success. In the 1960s, probably the most creative period in popular music in the United States and Great Britain, that was ceretainly the case. For example, how many people know that not a single Beach Boy played on their seminal album, Pet Sounds? Or that the Mamas and the Papas 1966 release, If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears ("Monday, Monday" and "California Dreamin'"), regarded as a pop classic, had narry a "Mama" nor a "Papa" in its rhythm section? The Monkees? Never played an instrument on their records. The Association's Insight Out ("Windy" and "Never My Love")? Voices only. That's how it so often went in the Sixties.

As a recent article in American Heritage Magazine points out, all of these albums were anchored by a group of Session musicians in Los Angeles --- Hal Blaine (shown here), Larry Knechtel, Leon Russell, Glen Campbell, Carol Kaye, and Jim Gordon, among others, collectively dubbed "The Wrecking Crew." Hal Blaine helped make 40 #1 hit records during his career. No one else can say that. That crashing drum solo at the end of Simon and Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water?" Hal Blaine. (He also slammed tire chains on the floor during the song.) And studio execs made sure, though, that with most releases only the bands or artists themselves received credit.

I can't blame the studios. While these studio musicians were paid very well for their often six day a week work, on union scale, they were professionals. They could lay down a track much quicker than the artists often could, and were far more predicatble and had much less ego to worry about. Brian Wilson -- then producing at the age of 22 -- greatly appreciated their knowledge and flexibility. He could tell them what he wanted, and they could do it. Doubtless working with the Beach Boys themselves would have been far more troublesome.

It was only in the Seventies that record companies started signing artists who insisted on playing their own instruments under the slogan of "authenticity." What happened? More studio time, more cost, and more ego. I'm not sure this is better.

So, here's to the unsung musicians, the guys just doing their jobs in the background. Aren't those folks the kind who really do most of the work in the world? Not many of us get to be stars. Do many of us really want to be? As bassist Carol Keye said: "We were in the business of making stars. We didn't want to be stars ourselves." Would that we all had that much sense.

As some of you know, I'm a bit of a fan of Brian Wilson. (I'm also prone to understatement.) After all, I did co-produce a tribute album to the man called Making God Smile. As such, it gives me pleasure when I can turn someone else on to the continuing vitality of the man and his music. When I was in Los Angeles last Fall, I had the pleasure of taking friend, musician, and writer John Fischer to the show. Now, he's a fan. Read all about it in his article on Breakpoint here.

A friend recently asked me if I intended to list my Top 10 CDs of 2006.  I have problems with doing that!  To make such a list, the records would have to be such that they bear repeated listening, records that I will return to again and again over the years.  Otherwise, they may be enjoyable for a time, perhaps interesting, but certainly not enduring.  I have a lot of such CDs on my shelves.  But I have few that I return to for regular nourishment.

Nevertheless, I can think of ten releases that qualify from 2006.  Interestingly, most of them are neither new nor, at least, completely new.  It's presumptuous to call them the best.  Let's just call them my ten favorites.  Here they are, in no particular order:

Love - The Beatles     I was astounded by the sound quality and freshness of The Beatles on this CD produce by George Martin as a 90 minute soundscape for the Cirque de Soleil production.  What seemed like a bad idea turned into a glorious blend of classic tunes, all Beatles, almost like listening to a medley of their songs performed live in your home.  Innovative and yet completely respectful of what the boys originally laid down.  Pure ear candy.

Intersections: 1985-2005 - Bruce Hornsby     This is the best box set I have ever seen or heard.  Unlike most box sets which likely appeal only to collectors and serious fans, this is not a mix of hits and curios but every single song is a gem, showcasing great songwriting, playing, and performing.  The packaging is excellent, and the DVD of performance videos is a big plus.  It's well worth the price.

Songs for Christmas - Sufjan Stevens     It's rare that a Christmas CD would make my list, but this ones does because it's so unique.  A mix of original songs, carols, hymns, and instrumentals, I think I'll actually listen to it all year long, not just at Christmas.  This is one you should not download, as the songs come in a set of individual EPs, and one LP, and the package includes a songbook and stories.  That's why it gets an A+ on packaging as well.

Pet Sounds (40 Anniversary CD and DVD) - The Beach Boys     Has it really been 40 years?  This is a beautiful CD, the Sgt. Pepper of its time, and a testament to Brian Wilson's talent and production capabilities at an early age.  I'm not ashamed to say I have bought this CD at least five times in its various reissues.  This version contains a DVD of special features and interviews and, yes, I like the fuzzy cover (sort of like the original Bee Gee's Odessa LP).

Under the Covers (Vol. 1) - Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs     Power-pop greats Sweet and Hoffs (The Bangles) join forces for a great set of Sixties and early Seventies gems such as Neil Young's Cinnamon Girl or the Bee Gees' Run to Me.  I can't wait to hear Volume 2.  Their voices mesh seamlessly, and they make Sixties music sound better than it ever did.  Great digi-pak packaging as well.

Good Monsters - Jars of Clay     This record surprised me by being so, so good!  I've always regarded Jars as a great band, even if I did not like all their records, but this record is one I'll listen to again and again, particularly their version of Julie Miller's All My Tears  or their own There Is a River.  It's consistently good.  It's a wonderful swansong for the band, as they exit their long-time label, Provident.

Ray Davies - Other People's Lives     Even if I don't always agree with him, I've always appreciated Kink's frontman Davies' keen wit and stellar songwriting.  It's not a terribly commercial record (I can't sing a song off it to myself right now), but it is enjoyable taken as a whole, and unlike many of Davies' other albums, has an American context as it was written while he was living in New Orleans.

Rosanne Cash - Black Cadillac     Wow.  This is great songwriting, as Rosanne tries to publicly come to grips with the death of her father Johnny and mother Vivian, like blood on the tracks.  It makes for a great, if emotionally exhausting, record.  She is struggling to come to grips with the faith and assurance her father had., and not quite arriving.  Listen to it in small doses, and not when you are depressed!   

There Is A Season - The Byrds     Probably for collectors only, this is a collection of the best, alternates versions, outtakes, and more from one of the paramount Sixties bands.  I love McGuinn's 12-string Rickenbacker sound, and I loved this band in all its many incarnations -- from Beatleseque pop to country to psychedelic rock to bluegrass to rock and roll. I have the previous box set, but I have to have this one as well.  That's the collector in me!

American V: A Hundred Highways  - Johnny Cash    If it sounds like Johnny had one foot in the grave while recording this, it's because he did.  And yet Rick Rubin's last session with him was beautiful, a man still working, even with a faltering voice, and yet so authentic, so genuine, and so full of faith.  Try "God's Gonna Cut You Down."

And finally, one Honorable mention:

Puzzles Like You - Mojave 3     A decidedly more pop and hooky record from an otherwise folky British group that tended to get a bit monotonous on previous records.  I actually heard these guys in concert (along with maybe 50 other people), and they were quite good if unengaging.  My, how do they do it?

So there you have it: ten great records or box sets from 2006 that I know that I will listen to in 2007.  They may not be the best, but it'd be difficult to say that they are not among the best.

Can you imagine Bob Dylan singing a Christmas carol?  Goodness.  As much as I admire him, I'd rather not hear that.  And yet, there are a few Dylan songs that seem appropriate at Christmas.   Probably any of them from his so-called Christian period woud be good, like "When He Returns," or "Property of Jesus," but I like this one, one preceding that period.  Dylan wrote the songs on his 1970 album, New Morning, after a long period out of thre public eye, after a serious motorcycle accident.  Given some of the titles on that album, (like "I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine"), one would have to conclude that some spiritual searching was occurring during this time.  Maybe.

Father of night, Father of day,
Father, who taketh the darkness away,
Father, who teacheth the bird to fly,
Builder of rainbows up in the sky,
Father of loneliness and pain,
Father of love and Father of rain.

Father of day, Father of night,
Father of black, Father of white,
Father, who build the mountain so high,
Who shapeth the cloud up in the sky,
Father of time, Father of dreams,
Father, who turneth the rivers and streams.

Father of grain, Father of wheat,
Father of cold and Father of heat,
Father of air and Father of trees,
Who dwells in our hearts and our memories,
Father of minutes, Father of days,
Father of whom we most solemnly praise.

("Father of Night, from New Morning, released in 1970)

The first time I heard Jane Kelly Williams was at a convention of the North American Folk Music and Dance Association in approximately 1998 in Cincinnati, Ohio.  I was familiar with Jane's first national U.S. release on Mercury Records, Tapping the Wheel, and I invited her to come to this convention to showcase her music and to get to know us, at that time I was running a folk music label called Silent Planet Records.  I did not know many Christian singer-songwriters in the general (non contemporary music) market, so I gravitated to any of them that were there -- folks like Pierce Pettis, Jason Harrod, Jan Krist, and Brooks Williams.  I knew her music, as I had listened to Tapping the Wheel, and I was captivated by it's understated beauty, well-crafted songs both lyrically and musically, and her voice.  But I had not heard her in person.

Jane doesn't remember that 30 minute showcase as one of her best performances, but I would never have known.  The particular room where the showcase was happened to be a small hotel suite with room for about 30-40 people.  Artists cycled in and out, some only drawing a handful of people.  When Jane's time came, the room filled, particularly with other artists who came just to hear her.  When Jane played, there was a hush over the room.  She sang quietly, so folks leaned forward, straining to hear every word.  It was enchanting.  There's just not a hint of the egotistical artist in Jane, and the purity and honesty of the music is a rarity.

Jane didn't ultimately sign with Silent Planet Records, for a host of reasons, but she and her musician husband Jane did become good friends with my family.  We've continued to enjoy her music over the years.  After taking some time to raise her twp-year old daughter, Willa, Jane is eager to return to playing music in front of folks, and to recording new material, much of which is more overtly Christian than her mainstream albums.  (She has, after all, been leading worship in churches for the past several years.)

I'd like you to know Jane too.  That's why I have invited her to do a house concert in my home in Raleigh on Epiphany, January 6, 2006, at 7:30 p.m.  I encourage you to come.  There is no admission cost, but Jane will sell her CDs and we will accept donations to cover her expenses and provide some income for her.  Please come.

You will find a full bio of Jane here, and you can visit her website here.  Room for the concert is limited.  If you are coming, please email me and let me know.  If you'd like to sample her music, visit her website, or check out a song here:

Christmas time poses some difficulty for me musically, in that I find so few Christmas albums that I like.  Most records are uninspiring rehashes of the same carols, hymns, and other Christmas songs.  Some artists have managed to take the familiar carols and add a depressing note to them, and I'm not in favor of that.  I may find one or two songs I like, but on the whole albums tend to be inconsistent affairs.  Instrumental albums fare about the same.  If I hear one more Windham Hill Celtic Christmas record. . . well, I've had enough of those for a while.  Really, what I cherish is music that is Christocentric, authentic, and original (meaning fresh and timeless arrangement of familiar songs or new songs).

I've tried to consider what my ten favorite Christmas albums are, the criteria being whether I listen to them every year.  In fact, one mark of a good Christmas album is that you want to listen to it all year, not just at Christmas.  Here's my ten:

• The Animals Christmas -- Art Garfunkel, Amy Grant, and Jimmy Webb -- The voices of Amy Grant and Art Garfunkel, the writing, arranging, and production of Jimmy Webb, and the background vocals of the Kings College Choir bring alive a beautiful legend focused on the animal's perspective surrounding the birth of Christ.  This is out of print, but new and used copies can be found on ebay or amazon.  It's consistently good, and not like anything else I have ever heard.
• One Wintry Night -- Jerry and Lisa Smith -- Instrumental versions of classic Christmas carols and three original compositions inspired by Ruth Bell Graham's Christmas story of the same name.  Jerry plays hammered dulcimer, Lisa flute.  It was produced by Jeff Johnson, who also adds keyboards and various Celtic instruments.  The title cut is one of those songs that I never get tired of.
• Winterfall -- Lee Spears and Donna Michaels -- Once again, instrumental, hammered dulcimer and piano, but this is, like One Wintry Night, not standard fare for such records.
• Come Rejoice -- Judy Collins -- Mostly traditional songs sung in a traditional way, but she pulls it off with a great voice.  The addition of "Song for Sarajevo," though it adds a blue note, is a plus.  It's a beautiful song.
• Songs for Christmas -- Sufjan Stevens -- This is a new favorite released this year, and one that grows on me in its lo-fi authenticity and campfire like singalong style.  It's moving.  And it's Christ-centered.  And I think I'll listen to it every year.
• Christmas -- Bruce Cockburn -- Canadian singer-songwriter Cockburn brings some original arrangements to Christmas carols, some little sung jewels, and one original.  My favorite: "Mary Had a Baby."
• Noel -- Various Artists -- This 1995 Via Records release (now long out of print, and Via long gone) was a Steve Hindalong and Derri Daugherty project.  In addition to them, the cool current or former CCM artists on this record include Buddy and Julie Miller, Riki Michele, Kevin Smith, Brent Bourgeois, and Carolyn Arends.  One original, 10 classics.  Beautiful.
• December -- The Moody Blues -- Call them prog-rock or orchestral rock, but these guys have been around.  They bring classic vocals and harmonies to classic songs, and a couple originals.  It's playable beyond Christmas.
• The Best of Amy Grant: The Christmas Collection -- Amy Grant takes the prize for the most Christmas albums by a CCM musician, a total of three.  I like the first, Tennessee Christmas, the best, but it's hard to find.  This album collects the best. 
• Light of the Stable: Emmylou Harris -- 1975?  This one's getting some age, but if you don't mind the country-twang, this album is enjoyable.  I like it because country songs remind me of home, of growing up, and that's a big part of Christmas.

Well, I'm not saying these are the best, but they are what I'm finding myself listening to. . . this Christmas, and for many of the past Christmases.

To be quite honest, there is not a lot of Christmas music that I enjoy.  I enjoy singing the traditional hymns and carols in church, but I easily tire of what you hear on the radio or of most attempts to contemporize traditional melodies.  It's difficult to recommend many albums as a whole, while some single songs may stand out.  Nevertheless, I will endeavor to make some recommendations. . . tomorrow.

Today, however, I commend to your listening Sufjan Stevens' new box set, entitled Songs for Christmas.  Sufjan, a Christian, has become a favorite of the college crowd with his DIY (do-it-yourself) records, low-fi style, and mix of several styles, from banjo-plucking folk, to alt-rock, to some Arabic sounding flute music.  And that's just for starters.  Classically-trained, Sufjan plays most of the instruments and often records at home.  His label, Asthmatic Kitty (named after Sara, what else but an asthmatic feline?), is home-grown, run by his uncle out of Lander, Wyoming, about as far from the music business as you can get.  So, he's absolutely outside the mainstream, and yet he's enjoying some serious success.

While the banjo-plucking songs begins to grate after a while, this home-spun set of tunes really warms to you and evolves, as each EP represents a different year.  (Sufjan did each as a Christmas present each year to family and friends.) He mixes traditional hymns and carols with a number of peppy originals with names like "Come On! Let's Boogey to the Elf Dance!" and "Get Behind Me Santa!"  and a few instrumentals -- for a total of 42 tracks. He manages to take traditional songs like you might hear in the shopping mall and may have grown weary of and sing them his own unique way, giving them a freshness that appeals.  All in all, this record has the feel of a family gathering and singalong.  In fact, it's prominently billed as a "Singalong" and the 40-page Songbook that is included has all the words and chords included.  Hey, you can have your own singalong!

But that brings me to the best part -- the packaging.  First, this is actually a full-color box with five individual EPs, each in their own sleeve, with each disc bearing a different color label and looking like a 45 rpm record (if you're old enough to remember them).  There's also a sheet of Christmas stickers, a Christmas story by Rick Moody, original and funny artwork, an animated video, and a full-color comic strip like story by Tom Eaton.  Funny too.  A bit of fun poked at Sufjan.  It's an amazing package that all you downloaders are really missing.

Two things bother me.  First, a little too much banjo-plucking and off-key singing, and yet this yields to a broader and more pop instrumentation later in the records.  Second, a little too much incompleteness --- I sometimes have a sense with some songs that things are not done, that a thought needs finishing.  Sufjan can write a good song.  Rather than inserting some pieces of songs here and there, why not fill a record with the best?  Nevertheless, I quibble.  This is by far the best new Christmas record out there this season.  In fact, it may make my Top 10 Christmas records of all time, but it may need some time before I am prepared to place it there.

Give it a listen.  Singalong.  Have a DIY Christmas, will you?