The Soul of the New CD

When I’m listening carefully to music I love, whether it’s Mozart or the Black-Eyed Peas, I get to thinking about what went into the songs. What was the composer thinking about? What was the inspiration? What is the soul of this work?

These were the sorts of questions I had when I went to interview Russ Hewitt about his newest CD, Alma Vieja. He kindly took an hour or so to walk through the CD and explain some of what went into it.

Since I’m always fascinated by song titles, that’s where we started. The first CD title, Bajo el Sol, or “Under the Sun,” is the name of the title cut and, in my opinion, reflects the sunny, multicultural feeling of the collection Russ said, “I wanted a title for a second CD that was clever, but not too clever. Alma Vieja means ‘Old soul.’ For example, an old soul can be a kid who doesn’t act like a kid, or someone who knows something they don’t have a reason to know. As a child, I felt a sense of this. Sometimes when I traveled, I felt at ease in a strange place. It was new place, but somehow not new to me. Or I might feel an instant connection with some people for no apparent reason. I remember people telling me I was an old soul.”

He explained that for a while, “Soldade” was a working title for the whole CD. “It’s the English spelling of a Portuguese word that means something like ‘so beautiful you can’t describe it.’ The song ‘Soldade’ is open and airy; not busy. It has a major key so it’s uplifting. It’s different from anything else.”

When I talked to Russ, he said favorites at the moment were “Soldade” and “Dhanyavad,” which means “thank you” in Hindu. “Dhanyavad” was originally scheduled to be on Bajo el Sol. “I really like the Hindu scale,” he said, “and I worked with a couple of chords that don’t normally occur together. I wrote three or four versions of this song, based on different grooves.”

Other song titles are “Miss Mimi,” named after one of his dogs, “Ojos Bonita,” on Bajo el Sol¸ is named after the other dog. “El Beso,” also on the first CD, is named after his cat. “Moonlake Drive” is the street Russ’ mother lives on in Florida. Gabriela in “Gabriela Mi Corazon” is his wife’s middle name. Russ said “Tango for Ahn,” was the first song he wrote after finishing Bajo el Sol. Ahn is his mother and he wrote it for her to use when she dances the tango. “Gypsy” is the second song he’s written—besides “Bajo el Sol”—that uses the Hungarian Gypsy scale. And "Pelourhino" takes its name from a district in Rio de Janeiro.

Russ said that he comes up with the titles after he writes the songs. "I don't start with a title and try and work a song around it," he stressed. "I write the song and then think about what comes to mind. The song titles also have dual meanings, so although Bonita is my dog, who is a husky and has pretty eyes, the title 'Ojos Bonita' could mean something different to everybody else. And because 'Miss Mimi' is a cha-cha it could suggest some girl on the dance floor shaking her thing with attitude in some Miami club."

In point of fact,that's exactly what I think of when I hear "Miss Mimi."

Russ' producer, Bob Parr, wrote “Las Cruces,” named after the town in New Mexico. “We added it to the CD because we found we didn’t have any other slow ballads.” The two co-wrote “Pacific Sunrise.” “We wanted a top-down-cruising vibe,” he said, “and once it was completed we thought Michael Lington on sax would be a perfect addition. The song is a little different from my normal sound. I’m happy and proud of it, and thrilled that we got Michael to play.” Russ and Bob expect “Samba Samba” and “Pacific Sunrise” to be the most popular songs on the CD, so they released them as singles.

And indeed, "Pacific Sunrise" has been named: 3rd Top 40 single, Smooth Jazz.com chart #30, Smooth Indie Star chart #10, Groove Jazz Chart #18, Radio Wave Internet airplay chart #29, Billboard Smooth Jazz chart: New and Active." He just released "Samba Samba," and it, too, is headed toward the top of the charts.

Russ also talked about performing some of the songs. “Two of the hardest songs are ‘Moonlake Drive’ and the end of ‘Miss Mimi,’” he said. “They both have insanely difficult solos.”

If I had never met Russ Hewitt, if I had never seen his fingers fly over a fretboard, never met his wife and his pets, I would still be enchanted with the songs on his CDs. Do your soul a favor and go listen.

Not in my own strength

I had to give myself a lecture earlier this week. The subject was "Doing things in one's own strength," as opposed to leaning back and trusting God to accomplish His purposes through me, in His ineffable fashion.

It was on a day when I was preparing for a Young Lives gathering. I had three or four girls who needed rides, but only one or two drivers. On top of that, I had agreed to do "the talk," and wasn't exactly sure what I would say. Even worse, I'm not particularly confident about delivering homilies to teen-aged girls. I spent the afternoon writing and re-writing pithy statements, text messaging girls and drivers, and generally wringing my hands.

There's a peculiar tension in the notion. On the one hand, we need to trust that God will indeed accomplish His purposes--with or without us, as a matter of fact. I suppose that in theory, I could have done nothing and all the girls would have arrived at Young Lives club somehow.

On the other hand, God expects us to work, to put some thought and effort into what we do on His behalf. In practice, drivers had to be identified, matched up with someone needing a ride, given the address, confirmed with the girl.... and so on. I'm not convinced these things would have happened had I decided to blow it all off and take a nap.

So somewhere in the middle of the hand-wringing, I lectured myself. After pondering this line of thought, I guess I concluded that we do indeed need to put out a worthy effort on the tasks that have fallen to us. But when we start to think about how God is at work in the background to accomplish the purposes, it just seems to take the pressure off.

And it also seems to take me off my egotistical pedestal of thinking how indispensible I am.

Both of these are excellent results.

Everyone got to Young Lives that night. My spiritual talk went pretty well. I even used some of this as an illustration about the joy and refreshment we receive when we have a close relationship with the Lord.

The Scripture reference is Nehemiah 8:10. "The joy of the Lord is your strength." I think "the joy of the Lord" must be that energized feeling that the Lord is in you and with you. I also think the inverse of this proposition is true as well: Strength in the Lord is your joy.

I know it's mine.

The Golden Years

Sometimes when I meet people with young children of a certain age, I murmur, "Ah. The golden years." When my children were small, I thought that the years between about age six and age ten were the best, the golden years. They were past the complete dependency of being babies and toddlers, but they still needed mama and dad. They weren't quite ready to forcefully assert their independence, but they had their own unique qualities and ways of looking at the world. They were sweet, funny, trusting, open-minded, enthusiastic and adventurous. Make no mistake: both my children still are!

But adolescence is a challenge. I think I speak for all of us who have experienced it.

I am happy to report, however, that I think there are additional golden years for young adult children. It's that charming period of time when they have finished college, launched their careers, and they're thrilled with new-found autonomy.

I imagine a time will come when the other challenges of adulthood such as the responsibility of a family or increasing pressure in a career, or the heartache of dealing with aging parents will dampen some of my children's spirit, and raise my levels of maternal anxiety and sympathy. Nothing gold can stay.

But for now, my son is in the second golden-years stage of life. It's great. His dad and I grin at each other a lot.

I suppose it's fitting and just a little bit ironic that my son seems to think that his dad and I are also in our "Golden Years." You know--golden, as in "heading into the sunset of life." That's fine with me. I'm not sure that I'm quite as decrepit as he thinks I am, but if he wants to take extra good care of me now, who am I to protest?

Thoughts on Blogging: A preamble

I may be kind of a 20th century type of gal, but I have been able to embrace e-mail, Google and Facebook. I'm slowly learning about other social media (still trying to master Twitter) including this blog.

As I see it, my blog is my opportunity to let "the world" read some of my thoughts on various subjects. I get paid for some of my thinking and writing, thanks to my wonderful clients. Some thoughts are too private to share in this forum; my prayer journal captures those. But like most of the self-proclaimed writers I know, I have other thoughts I want to express. I'm too timid to actually write articles and submit them to publications, so I guess this Internet blog format is perfect for me. And eventually, there may be other people reading this stuff besides me and my sweet husband.

All of this is sort of preamble or rationale for the kinds of topics I plan to discuss here. I'm calling the blog "Faithfully Yours" because I have a lot of thoughts that are faith-oriented. Some of them are essays I have written over the years; some will be expansions from my prayer journal ruminations. Starting in January, I am planning to read the Bible through--in alphabetical order (Acts to Zephaniah, dontcha know) and hope to post comments regularly.

This week, I've been thinking about music--specifically, guitar music. All my life, I wanted to learn to play the guitar and about three years ago I went out and bought a guitar and found a teacher. This is an interesting process and stimulates all kinds of flights of thought.

As it happens, my guitar teacher, Russ Hewitt is also a composer and performer in a genre called "Nuevo Flamenco." I love his two CDs, Bajo el Sol and the brand new Alma Vieja. I also admire Russ and try to help him develop an audience and followers.

I don't feel particularly well qualified to write a meaningful review of his music and I'm way too chicken to send in a review to the music blogs or magazines. However, I feel altogether justified in putting up some of my thoughts here on my own blog.

Recently I spent a couple of hours with Russ talking about his newest CD and about music and composition in general. Fascinating stuff to me. Over the next few days/weeks, I will be posting some essays that spring from that interview.

Maybe through the magic of the Internet, others will read about Russ and become fans.

In any event, it's fodder for my blog, a reason to write. I guess this 21st century communication has some advantages over what we did in the last millennium.

Fashion Failure

I leafed through the "FD/Luxe" insert to The Dallas Morning News today.
Will I ever be able to join that alternate universe where haute couture is attractive and/or affordable?
Will I ever get a satisfactory answer to the question, "Why do those models look so bored and annoyed?"?
Will I ever give up on scanning the photos of the neat & cool events to see if there's anyone I know ?
And why is it that the men in those photos either look laughably awful (though stylish) or just old?

I admit to being a fashion failure.
But they're always glad to see me at Target.

Is anybody out there?

Hello, world.
I just set up my blog.
I'm calling it "Faithfully Yours."
I'm hoping that's a large enough umbrella to cover all my random comments -- many of which will be faith-related.
All of which will be faithful and true.

EmilyFide (Fide is sorta Latin for "faithful.")