Podcast - Songs & Stories From Home

In this section I talk about discovering the importance of faith - though not necessarily religious faith - while preparing to become part of a Civil Rights Pilgrimage in 2014.

This Podcast talks about how and why I went back to college to do the work to obtain a degree. My family story is similar to many.  My grandfather came to America so his children could have an opportunity at a better life. His children and/or their spouses became doctors, dentists, professors, and engineers.

50 years after dropping out of college to become a member of the folk group, The Brothers Four, I received my Bachelor of Arts Degree from the Department of Communications at the University of Washington. I felt the occasion needed to be duly celebrated. Because I was going to be touring with The Brothers Four at the time of the formal UW graduation, I chose to mark the moment in front of family and friends with songs, stories, and special guests.

My cousin Jane was diagnosed with breast cancer in the fall of 1992. At first she and I talked about cancer simply as a bump in the road. I promised her I would send her a postcard every Friday until she was cancer free. Some 70 Fridays – 70 postcards later – she was gone.

Not long after the election of 2016 I made a promise to myself, to my art and craft, that I would not let the constant shameless lies and fear mongering that have infected the national narrative affect what I was doing – hoped to do - as a singer, songwriter, and storyteller.

For a long time I wanted to believe that if I found and faced and freed my fears they would no longer scare me. I learned the best I could do was go from living in fear to living with my fears. It’s enough.

We will be talking here often about the many different ways I believe songs sung, stories told, and love shared can lead us home – because of the role popular folk music has played and continues to play in my life – I thought I would start by talking about the power of that music – as well as how far we can see sometimes in a darkened room or when our eyes are closed and we are simply absorbing and absorbed in the music.

When I came off that stage at Benaroya Hall believing I was “home,” home was not a place I was returning to. In so many ways it was a place I was arriving at for the first time. On one hand it meant – means – that I was finally home with myself – who I am and what I’m doing. Yet that has been a gradual process over many years – not something that happened suddenly or overnight.

This song was the final song of a musical memoir, Season of the Heart, which I wrote and performed to celebrate my father’s life a year after he died. Twenty years later I appreciate more than ever the power of blessings both given and received.