With Anne Hills for a song!

Because we tour so much, we often miss out on seeing our favorite performers in concert, so imagine my delight when I discovered that one of my very favorite performers was going to be in Chicago at the same time as us. I saw Anne Hills perform at the Champlain Valley Folk Festival when I was finishing up my masters degree at Bread Loaf School of English in Vermont. At one point, she picked up a Tibetan singing bell, made a tone with it, and sang. Witnessing this freed me to begin performing much sooner than I would have otherwise. I had been a trombonist for 13 years and had only recently picked up stringed instruments. I was working on my finger callouses and fretting over the F chord on guitar (still not my favorite). But Anne showed me that what was most important was a stellar song and a true voice. Just those two magic ingredients could transform an audience. So, I jumped in, and here I am. 

I am lucky that some of Anne’s fans are Jeni & Billy fans, too, so during the break, they asked if Anne and I would sing a song together. So, on Sunday, I got to sing “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” with my musical mentor which was a dream come true! Thank you, Anne! You continue to inspire me with your kind spirit and your honest music.

The best review of my life just happened to come in today….

Sing Out on Picnic in the Sky!

When you send your CD out for review, it's a very odd act of hope and fear. When you get back two of the best reviews of your life in the same day, you wonder if something is in the air. I'll post one today and one tomorrow. Thanks very much to Sing Out for this review!

I hope you will read it and leave a comment on their site and/or here!

This is the review I have been dreaming of ever since I decided to hang up straight poetry and start putting my poems in song form about 12 years ago. I was sitting in the Old-time tent at Merlefest listening to Polecat Creek sing a bone-chiling a cappella ballad about a widowed man overwhelmed by his children. They were singing, what to me, was a poem. Later that same year, I heard Anne Hills sing a haunting song with a Tibetan singing bell, and I felt she was calling to me to lift my voice and sing simply about “them that made me.”

The place I come from in the coalfields of Appalachia is one of the the most beautiful and misunderstood places in the world. And it is my aim in life to continue to tell the stories of my home as best as I can. If I am called to turn my pen to other places like West Baltimore, then I will follow that call and bring my best words to it. I am ready to tell every story that comes to me and I can only hope that someone like Mr Weir will take notice. Absolutely, because it feels great and encourages me. I cried when I read this review. But I also hope this review will mean that the stories of these places and these people who called to me, will reach others who may need to hear these particular stories.

I have been sustained, galvanized, soothed, and troubled by storytellers, including mentors like Hazel Dickens and Sarah Ogan Gunning, in my life and I hope very much to “do them proud” as Mawmaw would say. This review encourages me to keep at it.
Thank you very much, Mr Weir, from me, Billy, and the Big Picnic Band!

Tracks by Anne Hills

Been unpacking and getting the laundry train rolling to the sweet sounds of Anne Hills, my musical mentor and friend! She has a new record called "Tracks" which is full to the brim with superb train songs. It's hard to choose a favorite, but so far Like a Train, Pullman Porter Christmas, Winter Vigil (Eight & Sand), and I Rode 'Em All, Man are coming out favorites, but tomorrow it will be four different ones. That's how it is with Anne Hills records. So good to hear Anne sing "Rider on an Orphan Train" by David Massengill -- one of my favorite songs every written. All in all the first day home has chugged along pleasantly due to this sweet soundtrack. If you want to get a friend some folk music for Christmas or if you have a train enthusiast in your family, you are in luck, you can get the CD right here: http://www.annehills.com/recordings/tracks/