Visionary Multi-Media Artist
'Precious Rituals,' is as close as you can get to watching me perform vocally in concert. Armed with only my voice and the melody.
'Precious Rituals.' is the companion piece to my book of haiku and long form poems that I had originally written in the 1980's that would later become the book "Rituals." After finishing the book, I realized I wanted to say more using the same words. I set out reimagining them and create a song cycle in 2011 using only multi-layered one take vocals.
So much of what I learned as a child about using the voice as an instrument comes from listening to lots and lots of race records as they were called from the 20's and 30's and Billie Holiday. I literally fell in love with her and that romance hasn't waned.
Here is my humble attempt to vocalize what she means to me.
This piece is offered as a free download.
Enjoy!
This was one of those break-up poems one rights in youth. The challenge in converting it into a song was how to convey the mixture of sadness and relief one experiences when coming to the realization that one has learned the lesson: "That sometimes it is better to move on, then to stay."
Creating it brought back the scent of lost love.
You might not believe me this time
When I say
I won’t be coming back this way again
See
I’ve found myself in this place
That I swore that I’d never go back to again
So
I’m putting an end
To this life and this love
It seems we have flown
The last of our paper doves
We’ve had the wine
And
We’ve broken the bread
One too many times
And now
We’re running on phony alibis
So
No
I won’t be coming back
This way
Again
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