Merry Christmas, I hope your holiday is restful and peaceful. I am truly grateful for the many good friends on this list and for the interest you have shown over the years in my musical work. My release of BELOVED this year has been quite a journey and I am grateful that, between the funding campaign and the first year of sales, we covered all costs and got this record out. Although I did not travel this year, I do miss those of you who I’ve met on the road in years past. There have been some health challenges that have slowed me down a bit (I detail this more personally in my blog) but I have enjoyed keeping active with shows here in Seattle. In addition to music, I’ve kept busy as a private therapist and overseen a counseling program for a local nonprofit called The Puget Sound Christian Clinic. PSCC provides medical, dental and counseling to the underserved in Seattle – especially our undocumented neighbors. PSCC has been a bright light for me especially against the back drop of dismay I feel for much of American Christianity’s embrace of the Trump presidency at the betrayal of its own beautiful tradition. Watching the religious right continue to back this administration has been heartbreaking. The Atlantic Journal said it best when it wrote: “Trump’s unapologetic materialism—his equation of financial and social success with human achievement and worth—is a negation of Christian teaching. His tribalism and hatred for “the other” stand in direct opposition to Jesus’s radical ethic of neighbor love. Trump’s strength-worship and contempt for “losers” smack more of Nietzsche than of Christ.” VENI EMMANUEL Re-releases on Spotify Play Veni Emmanuel on Spotify This year I will be re-releasing a few things that were never actually digitally distributed. One such recording is Veni Emmanuel, a Christmas single that was previously only available by download on my site. I recorded this traditional hymn with Tara Ward (also on BELOVED) with an original arrangement back in 2010. It is one of those recordings that speaks for me spiritually in ways that words seem to fail. This recording has now been remastered by Ed Brooks (REM, Sound Garden) and is available on Spotify, Apple Music and all digital platforms. Orphan Song: New Song Debut Every year around this time I try to debut a new song, usually a demo that will later be arranged for an album. This year’s offering is Orphan Song engineered by Antoine Arvizu (Beloved/Earthside Down). Ball of Wax Quarterly recently reviewed it for its compilation and writes: “This song is about the Carter Family, written in response to the graphic novel Don’t Forget This Song, by Frank M. Young and David Lasky, and it all comes together. It’s not referring to a song about orphans, but rather songs that are orphans, the songs A.P. (Alvin Pleasant) Carter spent countless days, weeks, years traveling the country in search of. This song is his wife’s desperate plea to keep him at home rather than rambling the land in his quixotic quest to collect songs from far and wide… another understated triumph from our friend Robert.” The Blog Challenge This year I challenged myself to blog on each track on BELOVED. It has been cathartic to create personal reflections for each song with videos and interviews. The last entry was entered just this month. Here are the entries in order of the album: songblog: Sunshine songblog: Uncertain songblog: Coal Miner songblog: To Find You songblog: Even Now songblog: Reprise songblog: The Mulberry Bird songblog: Beloved songblog: Sleep songblog: The Ballad of Little Miss M songblog: Recovery Some Fun From the Archives… This is fun. Todd Zeller and Issac Judd have archived my musical life on film and every now and then they offer up a surprise. Here was an unreleased video of EarthSide Down taken during the Thirteen Stories tour (2004), definitely a blast from the past.
I have tried, in my way, to be free
Available now for download and streaming on all major platforms (follow us on Spotify). Bandcamp • Spotify • Apple Music • iTunes • Amazon New Year Greetings I thought I would let the prior year settle down a bit and the new one settle in before sending out a new year’s greeting. It has been a tumultuous season and one I suspect few will forget. I pray that the coming years will give us a chance to heal in a lot of different ways… politically, spiritually and physically. As I consider that thought an ancient phrase comes to mind “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely… think on these things.” I’ll take that as my resolution for 2021. Bird on The Wire (single) out now To celebrate I am releasing an old song. This recording of a Leonard Cohen classic was tracked 4 years ago, just following his death, but was not made widely available (beyond my elist). My thinking at the time was that the world had become too chaotic to release a single that, for me, represented more of a calming reflection. Cohen, who often wrote about the vulnerability of a democracy, wrote in the liner notes of his re-release of Songs From A Room that Bird on The Wire was “simultaneously a prayer and an anthem.” With that in mind, I feel this year comes with a more hopeful context in which to release this cover. I hope that you will enjoy it and I invite you to add it to some of your playlists. This recording features Sydney Metcalf on cello along with myself on piano & vocals. It was produced by Nathan Yanccino (Soundgarden/Noah Gundersen), mastered by Ed Brooks (Pearl Jam/REM), with the cover photography by Nyree Watts (Innocence Mission/Mark Kozelek). Not On Your Team Video Not on Your Team Available for download and streaming on all major platforms. Bandcamp • Spotify • Apple Music • iTunes • Amazon In case you missed it… “Not on Your Team” released October of 2020. This new composition features a string arrangement by Ric Hordinski and is available on all major platforms. Here is the official video (please subscribe to our video channel). AVAILABLE FROM THE STORE THE BOX SET (Four copies left) Almost extinct – includes ALL CD’s (including out-of-print releases). Beloved (CD & Vinyl) 12″ Vinyl ($20), CD ($10), & Download ($10) Heart Like Feathers (CD/DVD/Book) $10 This Limited Edition BOOK/CD/DVD is the most beautiful record we ever made. This Bar Has No One Left (CD) SOLD OUT (out of print except in box sets).EarthSide Down (CD) SOLD OUT (out of print except in box sets).Days Like These (CD) SOLD OUT (out of print except in box sets).