News Archives

Welcome!

Greetings to fans and friends, old and new. I’ve done a lot of touring in the past year, so this will be the first newsletter many of you will be reading. It’s a bit long, but it’s been a year since my last one…. So welcome!

New Year, new album
First of all, amazingly, I have a new album, titled Light of Day, and it is available now.

To tell the truth, I surprised myself with this one, in that I didn’t plan it months in advance the way I plan most albums. In fact, it exists because one day I stumbled across a couple of vocal/guitar work tapes I’d done at home awhile back, and I thought they sounded pretty good. In fact, I loved them. I dug around and found a few more, and I loved them as well.

To make a long story short, I had the idea of sharing them, and before anyone could stop me – voila! – I put Light of Day together. Actually I used my good friend (and occasional collaborator) Johnsmith as a sounding board, and he was very encouraging. So if this album doesn’t go over well, John will be my whipping boy!

Used to be, when I finished a song I’d sing it into a little cassette recorder… and either show it to my publisher or else use it as a sketch for a demo, which would be recorded in the studio with other players. With the advent of affordable home digital recording technology, however, I began to record them to DAT (digital audio tape)… and later to a little Roland hard drive recorder. Most of the songs were recorded in mono, usually with one mic set up to record both voice and guitar, but the sonic quality is astonishingly good.
The gist of this is that many friends and fans have expressed to me over the years that they’d like for me to make an album with nothing on it but my voice and guitar… and this is it(!) – thirteen never-released songs, plus the original work tape of Trip On Love.

Sherpas album
The past year also saw the release in February of the long awaited Sherpas (link to Sherpas site) album. My good friends, Michael Lille and Tom Prasada-Rao (link to his site) and I have written lots of songs over the years, and we have performed together now and again, but until this year we’d not recorded together. With some excellent studio help from my frequent co-producer, Cliff Goldmacher, we came up with *Honor Among Thieves, a studio recording of thirteen of our favorite collaborations. Produced by TPR, it’s an album we’re all proud of.

[*Special thanks to Harry Remmers, who made the album possible.]

Touring
Speaking of touring, in the past year I’ve performed in New York, Mexico, Texas, Maryland, Virginia, DC, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Michigan, Washington, Colorado, California and Ohio, and it looks like I’ll be covering even more ground in the coming year. I’ve made lots of new friends, and I’m especially grateful to all the volunteer-supported independent music theaters, clubs and churches who have presented me to new audiences. I’m also indebted to all the journalists who write with passion about music they truly care about, and to all deejays and music directors at public, college and arts-and-community minded commercial radio stations that keep real music alive in a world of blunt, big dollar marketing and image-dependent advertising. Amen. <check tour schedule>

Songs
In the past year my songs continued finding their ways around the world like notes in bottles, washing up here and there. One of my favorite recent songs, When You Know (written with good friend Jeff Franzel and originally recorded by Shawn Colvin for the film Serendipity) was featured last spring in As the World Turns, which was a great thrill as my grandmother watched that soap faithfully for almost fifty years!

Also Broadway star Melissa Erricco recorded Never Saw Blue Like That (written with Jeff and Mark Luna and previously recorded by Shawn for the film Runaway Bride) for her debut album, which was produced by legendary producer Arif Marden (Aretha Franklin, Barbara Streisand, Norah Jones, et al).

Way down south, Australian superstar John Farnham released One Voice: The Greatest Hits (an anthology album and accompanying DVD music video collection), which features three of my rock and roll songs – "That’s Freedom", "Hearts On Fire" and "Angels" – and the album was in the in the Top 10 down there for many weeks. Thank you, John!

Thanks
Thanks are in order to my agent Terri Stewart for getting my music into so many new places. Sincere thanks also to my support team in Nashville: Robin Andrews and Beth Johnson. And special thanks this time around to Mary Breen, who designed, hosts and maintains my website. [She designed and hosts the Sherpas website as well.] Mary does an excellent job for reasonable fees, and I highly recommend her services. You can view her work at www.marybreen.com.

Thanks too to Pierce Pettis, one of the best singer-writers on this planet and an inspiration to me, for introducing so many of his fans to my music. Everywhere I go these days it seems there’s someone there who says, Pierce said not to miss this show….

On the Web
Speaking of websites, if you haven’t visited mine lately, it’s just been updated, with the new album added along with this newsletter and other info, some new photos and a new poem. Check it out.

Closing/World View
There’s no getting around it that 2004 is an election year, and I strongly urge everyone to get involved in the process. The right to vote and the right to speak out – what precious gifts we have in this country! If we sit back and watch, the one thing we can be sure of is that our decisions will be made for us. Ultimately, positive differences are made in this world only via people power.

As I travel around the country, what most draws my attention these days is what I think of as the quiet corporatization of America… and its consequent dehumanizing effect. The media is owned by a few groups that largely control the news to which we have easiest access. Conglomerates own thousands of radio stations and force feed us what suits their financial interests. Chain mega-stores crowd out Mom & Pop businesses everywhere. Sometimes I even forget where I am because the stores, streets, landscaping etc. look like so many other stretches of urban sprawl.

Performing for diverse groups, talking with people everywhere (and reading correspondence from them after I’ve moved down the road), what impresses me is the sense I have of a great collective longing we all feel for deep connection, soul recognition, for a sense of the divine in the ordinary, for meaning in our everyday lives, for jobs that not only feed us but nourish us.

I believe this election will afford us a choice, and in order to make it thoughtfully, I think we need to ask thoughtful questions:

• Which candidate’s politics is most realistically human, is most spirit nurturing in the big picture? Who’s building community – locally, nationally, globally? Who’s nurturing diversity – for is that not the underpinning of this country?
  
  
• Who best understands that the United States is one part of a global neighborhood… not a rich island with an inherent right to gobble resources and exploit other neighbors who are less powerful?
  
  
• Who best understands that short term energy needs must be viewed in the context of long term health and sustainability?
  
  
• Which candidate best understands the function of the military? Who can command with both skill and authority?
  
  
• Who best sees that quality education should not only be an inalienable right but also the best preventive medicine for society’s ills?
  
  
• And who best understands that art is essentially spiritual, and as such is the connecting, humanizing thread in our culture?

If you’re wanting support, guidance or more information for making informed choices, I can suggest some places to turn. In Tennessee, I support a grassroots group called FinD 18. Nationally, MoveOn.org, Truthout and Wellstone Action! are excellent clearinghouses for news from diverse sources and to links to community and public-minded activist groups worthy of our support.

Thanks, love & peace!

Tom