I am sitting in my favorite coffee shop staring at the gusty Northwester picking up a paper bag, swirling it upward and dropkicking it to the other side of the road. Summer is setting in fast here in the Middle East and with temperatures creeping into the low forty celsius territory it is time to consolidate my snippets of poetry, songs and other musings into what might need some more work and those that are ready to be recorded and added to the growing folder of new songs that will eventually make their way onto my records. I am unable to record the work I am envisioning right now as my preferred musicians and other contributors are back in South Africa and for the simple fact that I am looking to record with people I care about and trust rather than exclusively using exceptional musicians based solely on their ability. I have also discovered within myself an ambition to make an “Americana/Singer-Songwriter” album that incorporates all the qualities of the style but sounds and feels like a South African album.
Having made peace with the fact that I am now, squarely in my forties, writing and recording music that simply doesn’t have the following it otherwise might have had in the US and Europe and that any hopes of a traveling band and frequent festival and road gigs have waned, I have discovered a renewed love and passion for the craft. These days I focus on showing up, inviting the muse into my life and doing the work. I’ve never been happier and I feel that I am able to stand behind the songs I’m writing. I play and sing every day and the songs keep coming. Sometimes a whole string of them arrive at once and other times it becomes a frustrating trickle but I’ve learnt to just roll with it. I stay off social media, I manage and control what inputs I allow into my mind. I make more time for silence, fresh air and peaceful reflection. I am rewarded with an antenna that suddenly started picking up the signals of life again. Many people in my musical inner circle have been critical of this new approach and path that I have embarked on. It seems at times that we do not share the same vision. Perhaps I have just managed to face the demons in my head, all alone in my little box at the top of the stairs and started seeing the “music business “ both for what it is and especially for what its not. I will be more like my heroes. I am not listening to the opinions of people who claim that they are artists but haven’t produced a single new song or art piece in years. People who want to impose their visions on me. I am not enamored by celebrity and status of the “legends” who phone it in almost every show. The legacy acts that I have to respect somehow despite delivering nothing of substance to their fans who still show up to hear the same jokes and batch of songs, year after year. I will find musicians and share my vision and direction with them. I don’t care if they cant read the Nashville number system. I care whether they can feel and serve the song, not their egos. I won’t tolerate the “gate keepers” at any stage of the creative process, whether it is a sound engineer, producer, musician or festival organizer. I will find my audience and I will keep financing my own art. I don’t care about anything other than offering my best work in the most honest way possible. Kristofferson, Dylan, Willie Nelson, John Prine… they didn’t give a hoot about other people’s opinions. They did the work and made it happen, come hell or high water. Look at Stardust by Willie Nelson. Everyone told Willie it’s a bad idea. He stuck to his guns and today that album is loved and revered by fans and critics alike, going quadruple platinum and staying on the charts for over a decade.
I often get asked why I still write and perform. It sounds like a simple question but to truthfully answer it requires humility and honesty. I know artists enjoy and appreciate the feeling when the art that flowed out of them onto the page or canvas made people feel something. For me it’s the feeling of connection and community when playing my songs to an audience, no matter how big or small and recognizing the magic when one and one equals three. I guess it’s about empathy and being honest. I could draw on Carl Jung for a more substantial answer that might be more in line with my motivation, whether it’s conscious or not. “ Loneliness, according to Carl Jung, is not the absence of people around us, but the inability to express what truly matters within us.” So, when it really gets down to the basics of it I write and create in order to not feel so damn lonesome at times I guess. Having a connection with an audience or your friends allows you to reveal what truly matters within you. All you have to do is be vulnerable and honest.
“ End this ugly experiment with the human heart
Please do not tell me again about the lonely railway station
Where we undressed each other in a hail of apple seeds
And this voice of ignorant understanding-
Experience the deep humiliation as the tidal silence refuses to affirm it
Stand there in the vanity of your solitude
Summon the short-lived tears, the shallow laughter, the comforts
that obey your suffering, that embrace your defeat.
Stand there goose fleshed and proud, high-breasted one
in the erotic rags of religion
I sincerely hope we do not have to meet again
at the next amusement.”
- Leonard Cohen -