urge for going

“Well I get the urge for going when the meadow grass is turning brown; summertime is falling down; winter’s closing in…” –Joni Mitchell

Happy fall and harvest moon. It’s that beautiful time of year in the northern hemisphere that brings autumn and the waning life of the growing cycle and, for many of us, a period of reflection on what has been and what’s to come…  

Travel was lost for me in 2020, but in March, I was somehow transported to the incredible Magical Moon Farm in Marshfield, Massachusetts, where I became immersed in farm life in a back-to-the-sixties time warp with the enchanting Donna Green, tilling, planting, watering, and harvesting, all under the auspices of Covid and a 1960’s and early 1970’s soundtrack. This kept me blissfully off the road for a while, as did the live weekly music program which became my central social life this summer… but now as summer ends and the farm closes down, there are journeys that can’t be postponed any longer, especially when the meadow grass is turning brown.

For starters, I’ll drive south to my son and his family, through Pennsylvania, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi into Louisiana. This is a beautiful stretch through some of the richest and most controversial historic American byways, but I’ll see the sunrise on the highway, the Blue Ridge Mountains, the freedom of the open road, my son and his family in New Orleans, and hopefully some clarity of thought and vision. It’s been an interesting and exciting year with new love, new hope and new promise.

My travels bring me both away from and back to myself. I remember my last trip road from Malibu to Massachusetts, across the desert and the country’s midsection—Winslow, Arizona; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Memphis; West Virginia, and up through Northeast, until I crossed the Berkshires into Boston, that were actually “dreamlike on account of that frosting… “  My soul rejoices on these pilgrimages and I come out of them refreshed and renewed.

We are looking at the last few songs for our new album—our 15th—and so far we are thrilled with the results. Our team of David Minehan, John Sands and the van Gogh Brothers- Paul, Clayton and I- have become a shiny machine as we write, arrange, produce and record tracks in days like we’ve lived with them our whole lives. I suppose in a way we have lived with them for a big part of our lives, now that we have over 100 years of combined time working together. I greatly respect those who can produce and record albums by themselves in their bedrooms, but somehow that notion falls flat with me now. It’s become so much about collaboration and I am incredibly grateful to have these unbelievably talented men in my life in this way.

We also shot the video for the first release of the new album, “Down to the River,” a song about transgression and redemption. The whole process was a transcendent experience that started at the Farm with lip sync shots of the band on the barn loading dock followed by footage of baptism and treachery on the Connecticut River in Hadley, Massachusetts. The people, places and themes resonate deeply with me from various times in my life, and the whole film seems like a bizarre time travelogue with the quasi-religious subject matter, masks and rural settings. The film was shot and directed by Michael Neel, who outdid himself on this project with look, feel and storyline editing. Incredible. I think we have made a small but powerful statement at an important time in all of our lives. 

And we’ve gotten to play! Thanks to the music program at Magical Moon Farm and the outdoor “smoking section” at Vincent’s, we’ve sustained some of our performance schedule that of course was wiped out by Covid in March. We are lucky, indeed.

We played the last, joyous outdoor show at Magical Moon Farm on Saturday, October 3rd for the Farm’s Harvest Moon Fest, an incredible day of music with ourselves, the extraordinary Kerri Powers who took us all to church, and several others. The day was capped with a “Knighting” ceremony for several new kids with cancer and other life-threatening conditions as part of the Magical Moon Foundation, followed by Trick or Treating for 75 families throughout the theme-filled, costumed Farm. Donna Green is an extraordinary human being and only part of her creative and vibrant force was on display on the 3rd. It was an incredibly profound day I’ll never forget... Paul, Clayton and I next return to Vincent’s as a trio on Saturday, October 17th from 6-9 PM. Meanwhile, Donna and I are scheming ways to keep live music happening in the Barn this winter… Stay tuned...

Well, I think that’s enough for now. I hope you all had a great summer, and are enjoying this beautiful time of year in North America or wherever you are.

Love,

John

Previous
Previous

to the river we go

Next
Next

sliding into september