I’ve gone from one tour to the next, breaking handles off my suitcase and learning how to really live on the road.  I’m really getting to know what foods don’t spoil or leak in the car!  Our first international tour, up to Nova Scotia, was a beautiful way to break in our new band member- Molly Venter.  She’s amazing and so fun to be around.  I feel very lucky and inspired these days.  I’m hoping to use that inspiration to carve out a regular practice routine while on the road.  Easier said than done, I know, but there are so many melodies my ears hear that my hands don’t know yet (on the Dobro).  I guess that could seem frustrating, but right now it’s just inspiring me to practice more (and practice BETTER).  Every time I figure one melody out, things feel a little more right in my world and I get fired up to figure out more.  Ah, Sally Van Meter told me to work on this like 4 years ago!  I’m getting there, Sally!  Actually, I think I’ll put the computer down and get to it!

Photo by Ginger Fowler

Here’s my summer uniform- red rubber boots!

Abbie

Also, at the end of the month I’ll be teaching songwriting at the prestigious Swannanoa Gathering in North Carolina!!  This will be my first time teaching and I’m really excited about it.  I feel like I can bring together things I’ve learned from every part of my background, including attending Song School and Rockygrass Academy in Colorado, studying classical music, going to Jack Hardy’s NYC songwriters group, and even studying sensory integration and occupational therapy in college.

I’ll be posting the first Slide Sessions Podcast video next month, too!  Wahoo!

Abbie

Later this month the touring will slow down enough for me to get started on the NEW Slide Sessions!  I’m taking it to the web!  What used to be a monthly gig in NYC will now be a video podcast for the world to see.  I’ve already started scheduling sessions with some of my favorite slide players, going wherever they may be and taping a duet or two.  We’ll be dueling it up on slides of all sorts, laughing and making some fun, spontaneous music together.  Recording starts this month with Pat Wictor and episodes will be posted in August.  YAHOO!

Abbie

The rest of the month was a bit of a blurr, touring from upstate NY (where we saw a bear and two porcupines!) to Tennessee, South Carolina , and Massachusetts.  I even fit in two solo gigs- one with Pat Wictor (double slide gigs never get old) and an unplanned jam with David Jacobs-Strain at his recent NYC house concert.  The new record James is steadily climbing the charts, too!  Up to #4 on the Americana Charts this week and spent two months as the #1 album on Folk DJ!  I’ll be racking up the frequent flyer miles in the next few months with trips to Ohio, Texas and Oklahoma.  But for now, the sun is bright in New Jersey and I just filled the tires on my bike.

 Abbie

This past month has been amazing.  I told you all about my “music school” concept in March and it’s something that is really changing my life.  I’m not getting as much sleep or doing the dishes quite as often as I used to, but I’m spending way more time studying the thing I love the most.  Good trade off, eh?

This past week I teamed up with my long-time friend, Amy Speace.  We decided we’d write a song every day for a week, sending each other an mp3 & lyrics to keep us accountable and supported.  No re-writing, no critique, just WRITE!  I too often judge my songs before they’re done and it makes it impossible to write, so this was a way to stop that critic in my head.  It worked so well that now we’re extending it for a month.  Of course at first I had to nail my butt to a chair, set a timer for an hour, bribe and negotiate with myself…  I didn’t believe I could do it, but I had to.  And an amazing thing started to happen.  Everywhere I go, every song I hear, my mind is taking it in differently and processing it for potential use in the next song.  I feel like my mind is constantly chewing on rhythms and lyrics and rhymes, while my heart is constantly falling in love with different melodies.  Now, the songs I’ve written aren’t finished or ready to perform, but the process of writing is now a joy instead of torture.  I wrote a few country songs, a few folk songs, and then naturally gravitated towards swing/jazz.  The idea of writing a “standard” of my own is pretty thrilling.  Not sure I’ve nailed it yet, but studying the format of those old songs does me a world of good.

Other projects in my music school in March- studying the licks from Beaucoup Blue records and taking a trip to Paul Beard’s guitar shop down in Maryland.  He fixed my lapsteel so I can play it standing up with a strap.  Very cool!

Ok, time to go figure out what rhymes with “daffodil”

Abbie

Click here to order.

I’ve always wanted to go to music school.  It was a dream of mine.  I auditioned for lots of them as a senior in high school, but life took me down a different road to get where I am now.  I became an Occupational Therapist- guiding adults, children and even infants towards goals that seemed impossible for them.  Teaching them to do their “jobs” (crawling, getting dressed, holding crayons, all sorts of things) despite physical problems, premature birth, illness, strokes, head injuries, etc.

Now I’m a full-time musician, which was my ultimate goal, and I’m trying to lead myself toward goals that sometimes feel too big to handle.  It’s ironic that my training in O.T. is what is now helping me take myself to music school.  That’s my gift to myself this year.  Music School.  Right here at home, at my little red desk with a 3-ring binder, metronome, ipod, some blank TAB and staff paper, pencils, and a big sheet of star stickers that my sister gave me.

I’m starting with a week of cover songs.  I’m learning a song per day, arranging it for solo Dobro and voice, recording it, listening to it over and over and analyzing the structure, melody, guitar licks, rhymes…  getting all of that in my bones.  It’s only day two of this project and I’m learning way more than I ever thought I would.  I started with one of my favorites, Bonnie Raitt’s version of “I Feel The Same.”  I could spend a week analyzing just the guitar licks in this recording (and I might!).  But today I’m moving on to Justin Townes Earle’s song “Momma’s Eyes.”  A simple, beautiful song with no licks to speak of.  I’ll focus on the melody, the rhyme, the simplicity.

Later this month, after I fill my ears and hands with all this great music, I’m planning to do a week-long project of writing a song per day.  And, of course, I will earn shiny little star stickers for every little step I take.

Saturday’s show in State College is still on- hope to see you there!

I’ve also got a duo show with Anthony da Costa this month, out in State College, PA.  A beautiful room with no need for amplification or microphones.  I’m really looking forward to doing some of the new songs we’ve worked up, including the Tennessee Waltz.  Here’s a youtube clip of us doing it for the first time back in December.

And in other news… Red Molly’s latest CD, JAMES, comes out this month!  WAHOO!  I can’t wait for everyone to hear it!

Abbie