I’m back in the studio. My goal in 2017 was to play out and write a new song once a month. I overshot the first goal with 14 gigs last year and came up only 1 short on the second goal with 11 new songs.

2017 taught me or reminded me of several things:

1. Everything gets better with practice.
2. I can learn, memorize, and perform three hours of music, no problem, most of it mine.
3. It’s fun to play out a lot, meet people, watch them dance to your music, and watch the list of people who care about your music grow little by little.
4. Songwriting is still an arduous process for me, but my songs get better the more I write.
5. I need to do this.

Much as I hated the idea of not playing out for a while, once I got back into the process of recording, which I’ve talked about before in my blog, I remembered how much I like it. It’s so painstaking, so slow, so meticulous (or at least the way I do it), that it kind of drives me nuts, but I am also loving it.

First Street Cafe, Benicia. Photo by Greg Plant

I recently accepted a promotion to a demanding, interim position in my day job, and I played with the idea of putting music to the side for a while and postponing starting my CD. I tried that on for a few weeks in December and quickly realized what a mistake it was. This worries me, because I hate the idea that my music is nothing more than a vanity project to keep a working stiff from losing her mind. Then I remember the faces of the folks I didn’t know who happened to be there when I was performing and who closed their laptop to listen, put down their fork to dance, or moved closer to make sure they caught every word. I remember these faces because they encourage me when I wonder if the time I spend practicing instead of being with my family in the evenings is worth it. Yes, I could do music just for myself, but if there is no one else who wants to listen or cares, it is so much harder to justify the effort. Maybe that’s codependent or whatever, but it’s true for me.

I am really looking forward to bringing this new CD to you, probably in about 18 months if I’m realistic. I did my first recording session a few weeks ago, and recently received the initial mix of the first song … Cheers for Tears, which I used to close my sold-out EP release show a year ago November. Even my teenaged daughter says it sounds good. Now I’ve sent off two more songs to Kenny (my producer) to sketch for another session in a few months. Stay tuned, and thanks for the support.