Streets lined with red brick and green branches
Wet and rainy days might seem bleak Our rain is the paint that makes the land lush and the folks unique
City parks, wild berries and old bridges Rolling river bringing good to and from the sea
A mountain hooded in snow silently watching over me
Anywhere I go these roots are with me, and I find
I take along a little piece of heaven With these memories of mine from the grammy award–winning album radio music society
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fame is a general sense of, “I’m okay.” The adventure in my life and art has been over and over again taking the risk and finding out that I don’t need to make sacrifices artisti- cally to have what’s more important to me.
as effortless and as captivating. In the natural world there’s resistance and conflict—the push and pull of differ- ent species, there’s the breaking through the ground of a sprout—but there’s also a sense that it’s all growing toward harmony and coexistence. In a musical arrangement or in a poem, artists are trying to re-create that balance between dissonance and consonance.
On the subject of balance—how do you handle the pressure of success? You’ve achieved a lot very quickly. Concepts of wealth and success have a lot to do with what drives an artist’s career. You can pursue a version of wealth and well-being that has to do with a lot of people knowing your name, and appealing to an image-marketing strategy, or following the rules that might enable your music to reach a broader mainstream audience. Or you can just be yourself—whatever that might be right this minute, for better or for worse—and pursue some crazy idea that may or may not work. What gives me the courage to pursue ideas that may not come back to me as more money or more success or more 30 · LAND&PEOPLE · FALL/WINTER 2014
And nature is a part of that? Yes—it’s the wealth of nature, the bounty of the natural world that I want. And maybe that’s something I learned from my mother: I’ve always identified doing well as feel- ing good and being able to enjoy the things that are really free, like the natural world. Maintaining green spaces is not free, and protecting them is not free, but they are wealth to me. I don’t feel a taste or a hunger in my mouth for gleam- ing, glittering, big mansions, or power, or money. I have a taste in my mouth for calm and subtle and beautiful.
That’s a serenity and confidence that’s evident when you perform. I try! I have a song called “Apple Blossom,” and when I sing it I sometimes can see the scene that it describes. It’s a scene in the countryside, and I try to experience the air and the light and the sound and the calm of that place and imagine the story unfolding. And when I can go there, it’s a better performance of the song: I forget that I’m in a club or a theater, and all my concern about the show—are they getting the story? Is my voice going to hit that note well?—it melts away.
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