to the river we go
and the months continue to fly by like autumn leaves swept up in an indian summer wind… i write as America awaits its political destiny after an arduous 2020 that divided our country along political lines based on a virus. for those of us who came of age during the vietnam war, this outcome is literally like science fiction. i hope to God we can return to each other as brothers and sisters in a shared ideology; this isn’t the first time our country has been divided, and it probably won’t be the last. as a friend said to me in 2016, “don’t worry, johnny, America is stronger than you think.”
the van gogh brothers continue to create — for now, in the fields and in the recording studio, and we are lucky to have these outlets in these turbulent times. our new video, “down to the river,” got completed last month by director and cinematographer michael neel. this little art piece was the realization of an idea i had when i visited my longtime friend bob crowley’s farmland in hadley, massachusetts, for the first time, shortly after we had completed the recording of “down to the river.” bob’s land abuts the connecticut river and i could see the video of morality, hypocrisy and redemption unfold in my mind’s eye as he and i walked his property. i mentioned it at the time and asked bob if he would give us permission to shoot and would he play the preacher? in the subsequent pandemic-filled months, it seemed like the idea was all but impossible but as summer waned, i realized we could shoot safely if we all wore masks and distanced. i imagined the effect of the masks to the tone of the piece and realized it would be even better with them than without. but how would we get the band b-roll? we planned a shoot in bob’s lab, but the night before the shoot, clayton asked, “why aren’t we shooting at the (magical moon) farm?” donna was all in and her artistic imprint on the video made an incredible difference- not simply the farm shots, but the hats, the clothes, the shots of the money in bob’s glasses, the fade of bob’s face to black, and the overall dimension she added. we totally lucked out with our team. click on the hyperlink above and see for yourself. many thanks to bob, donna, nancie cummings, rob and kris libon, john wheatley, and mary bartlett fusco & friend for helping me bring this vision to life.
our tracks continue to pile up towards an album with “little stick of dynamite” added to the songs to be mixed, and the new, new orleans-penned, “i can feel the dead,” written and recorded in october. i can feel the dead was written in a shotgun house in the audubon section of new orleans a few weeks before halloween, and features a murder of crows recorded from the front porch of the house minutes after i wrote the song. “blue and gray in red, red sky…” nods to the ghosts of past divisions, which seem ever-present in the crescent city, and which overcame me during my recent visit more than ever before. it was good to hit the road, and the drive from the dense northeast out over the hudson, down through pennsylvania, virginia and appalachia, the blue ridge mountains and into many of the “red” states, reminded me that we are one America, a cacophony of many different views, beliefs and opinions— all united with the freedom to have and express them.
these recurring themes, together with mortality and spirituality, create the nexus of our fifteenth full-length album. i think the work is a “maturing” of our long-time collaboration and i am very pleased with our results so far. i must credit tom jones as having a profound impact on the direction of this album. seeing tom at jazzfest 2019 brought home the importance of honing craft and owning and exposing the origins of popular music in our contemporary interpretations. at this point in my life, i can at least demand of myself that i infuse my work with unapologetic honesty and integrity to the limits of my talent. i hope this record conveys this to listeners and reveals something that creates connection.
live appearances are back in limbo as the weather changes in the northeast and travel west remains uncertain. the summer at magical moon farm was a respite from the confines of the pandemic but mother nature is now poised to bring a return to social hibernation. i hope our amazing scientific community can create new ways to fight the virus and restore mobility to our beautiful world. like many other musicians, i feel a great loss without the ability to share music in a live setting. we are on the books for an early show at vincent’s on november 14th, but all is weather dependent now. please check back here for our schedule.
that’s it for now, i think. thank you for taking a few minutes to hear what i have to say. like you, i’m just a visitor for a short time, and all this is a tiny snapshot in an endless sky of humanity and time.
love,
jc