MY FAVOURITE PICTURE FROM MY FIRST YEAR OF BLOGGING.
I've been listening to India Arie. "Sometimes I shave my legs and sometimes I don't/Sometimes I comb my hair and sometimes I won't...I'm not the average girl from your video/And I ain't built like a supermodel/But I learned to love myself unconditionally/Because I am a queen/I'm not the average girl from your video/My worth is not determined by the price of my clothes..."
I have been trying to learn what India seems to know intrinsically.
ANOTHER ONE OF MY FAVOURITES FROM THE LAST YEAR.
I have also been listening to Nina Simone. Especially SINNERMAN. I can not find her perfect version of Leonard Cohen's SUZANNE on CD.
If someone is going to ask you to choose, it will always be between Good time and good girl Ella, tragic bad girl Billie, or wicked but musically wed Sarah. (I choose Sarah and her perfect musicianship; but it is a close second for Billie. )
Nina is never included. She is not a good girl, but she is true and honest. She is tragic, but she is not a bad girl. She is the seductress. She is the Siren. She is the wisewoman that lives at the edge of the forest. She is the friend to giants and freaks and spirits in the night. She is jazz, gospel, folk, blues, country, and soul.
When I hear her I hear the music my mother listened to, Modern America Folk music and the folk music of Great Britain. But I also hear my grandmother's Mahalia Jackson records.
Like alot of artists, I don't think Nina ever found the right producers. Some artists, like Prince, can produce their own songs, but most can't. No Doubt's ROCK STEADY and Stevie Nicks TROUBLE IN SHANGRI LA prove that the right producers, and probably there needs to be more than one, can take the artist to a whole new level.
(I am not talking here about "artists" like Brittany Spears, who need a team of producers and engineers just to get a record with some "music" on it. For the most part popular music-- even with talented singers and musicians like Beyonce, or even diva Whitney Houston-- belongs to the labels and the work label producers do in the studio to give a voice or good looking girl a hit record.)
THIS WAS MY AVATAR FOR AWHILE. I REALLY LOVE THIS LITTLE MONKEY.
Before I heard TROUBLE IN SHANGRI LA I thought I was a "sort of" fan of Fleetwood Mac. After hearing SHANGRI LA I realized I was a huge Stevie Nicks fan and that Fleewood Mac just watered her down.
I don't care for Sheryl Crow as an artist, but she did an amazing job of producing a good number of those songs, and every Stevie Nicks fan owes her a big Thanks!
TO RUN LIKE A CHILD THROUGH THE FLOWERS.
TO WALK IN PERFECT LIGHT
This Friday is my twenty one year anniversary of living Los Angeles. Can you believe that I am 40? Thank goddess I am a witch. We get younger the more years that pass.
TOODLE ON!!!
