Brooke Campbell: News

I was singing a new song into my recorder and forgot that it was still on as I headed in to my night shift at the restaurant.
I like the random flow of the 3 minutes. Sounds I know and love. The clip is on the MUSIC page.

"Until thy feet have trod the Road
Advise not wayside folk,
Nor till thy back has borne the Load
Break in upon the Broke.

Chase not with undesired largesse
Of sympathy the heart
Which, knowing her own bitterness,
Presumes to dwell apart.

Employ not that glad hand to raise
The God-forgotten head
To Heaven and all the neighbours' gaze--
Cover thy mouth instead."
-from "The Comforters'
Rudyard Kipling

My good friend has a family like a band of angels. She invited me into a part of their family vacation this week. They'd rented Naulakha, the house in Vermont where Mr. Kipling wrote The Jungle Book.
There was rain, sun, sweet kids reading and running around, hiking, cooking from scratch--you get it.
The poem above is the first thing in the first book I opened in the Kipling library. It feels straight out of Job--disallowing even friends from attempts at comfort that, in the end, are only good for the giver.
My friend's dad is a poet and wrote about the moment when one needs to be left alone..

the high aloft lays hold
of the down below
heave and rush all
part of the show

bigness proposes
a grand caprice
a rearrangement
of west and east

untold littleness
opens and screams
entirely united
for once it seems

dark gathers a color
light pulls it back
a memorable struggle
til both go slack

and surfaces tingle
with glossy balm-
the reemergence
of precious calm

Celestial Politics
by
Earl Simpson

If you'd like to contribute, tax-deductibly, click here...

https://www.thefield.org/Profile.aspx?SAID=2509

The following aired yesterday on the Denon Audio Blog

In the Spotlight with Brooke Campbell
Denon presents an exclusive interview with Brooke Campbell, folk, pop, and bluegrass singer-songwriter known for logging her journey through life in her music.

Brooke’s songs are mostly about her life. When she performs up and down the East Coast, she plays everywhere where people are willing to sit and listen to her soulful songs- playing at colleges, listening rooms, and prayer meeting venues.

Tell us about yourself.

I’m a singer/songwriter, living in New York City. I grew up in Whiteville, N.C., a small town near the coast.

When did you first decide to become a musician, & what inspired you?

Well, I guess I didn’t decide to become a musician; it just started pouring out of me one day. In college, I learned to pray, which I realize, is not typical. But, as soon as I did the music started coming and it hasn’t ever really stopped.

When did you first fall in love with music?

Oh, well the 1st two examples that come to mind when I think about music really opening my heart are singing in the car with my Mom. We would sing harmonies of anything we knew-songs from the fifties, old hymns, Christmas songs in the summer, whatever. The other is with some friends of mine who would gather on a pier at a lake near my house. The guitars would invariably come out. This was long before I played, but God, did I love hearing them and singing along. There was a lot of James Taylor and Indigo Girls.



What is your idea of SOUND Bliss?

There are many states of sound bliss, I suppose. My favorites are extreme clarity-when you can here the rustle in the breath of a singer on a spare recording, hear him readjust the guitar in his lap to reach the next chord or mood within himself. I also love extreme ambience, when the particulars are swollen out into the great mass of the song and the song itself becomes it’s own universe.

When did you first hear of DENON?

I learned about Denon when I met David Frederick on a plane home to North Carolina. We struck up conversation about the city, which led to music talk.

Who are your favorite artists today? And who is doing work that really inspires you?

To be honest, when I live in a big city, I don’t listen to that much music. I crave the silence. I am inspired by other fields. Buildings are important to me. I lived with a couple of architects this year and being around all of their models, watching them cobble ideas out of tissue and cardboard even before that was so amazing to me. Also dance. I have a few friends in the modern dance world here in New York. One friend, whose company, Bodyart, I worked with on a live music/dance piece. We also made a video that I love a lot. It’s on the 1st page of my website. Dance begets lyrics and melody for me. As for music that inspires me – as long as it tells the truth, especially hard truth, I’m usually a fan.

If you could own a piece of sound equipment that would enhance your music or home theater experience, what would that be?

Good headphones!

Catch Brooke Campbell by going to her personal website, where some of her songs, like “Stretched Toward You”, can be downloaded. Her album, “Sugar Spoon”, is available for purchase, with a new album slated to come out this Spring. Brooke will be playing at the Tea Lounge in Brooklyn on February 5th, with more dates available to see on her website.

It flaked down from the sky for 7 hours last night. Snapping limbs & tucking humans inside. 19 inches by morning.

Yesterday morning, I left town. I've been working a lot & needed some space.
One hour up the Hudson is a town I have grown to love. River, black with stars. And apparently... fireflies float over the river. They float over the river. I've never seen that, but I did tonight. Amidst all the things that make no sense in this life, that makes a lot of it.

My Aunt & Grandma have been growing Moonflowers. They bloom as the sun goes down. All the ladies in my family are blooming in the same way. Our patriarch, my grandad Robert, passed away at the end of March. I traveled home talking away the miles with mom & cousins. Everyone was full of stories of his last days and moments. But, by the time I got there 2 days later, most of the pain was gone. The air was crisp, the sky blue, the funeral home director, efficient & kind.

The ladies attended to everything--not that the men were ineffectual. Somehow, it's just that it was for us to do. We were built for it...for the filling in of the gaps. We grew in to the open space like Ivy and we grew together in a new way.
I suppose it was that it was grandma who remained. Had it been otherwise, maybe it would have been for the men.
Anyway, there's no need defending the admiration of the women in my family. The men understand.
It has been the turning of a page, for sure. We are all entering the prime of our strength and it is beautiful---rosy-cheeked & fertile, able to conceive, till, & fend off.
The Moonflowers are part of a huge new garden that my Aunt is growing with my grandma at her house. My grandad is sorely missed, yet the ground and every overhanging basket and branch have turned lush.
http://plantsinmotion.bio.indiana.edu/plantmotion/flowers/moonflower/moon.html

I took a train up to some quieter country today with thoughts of sitting by the river to watch the snow fall by a warm fire. Was instead met by blizzardous conditions in a town completely uncharmed by it. I've never before experienced a true blizzard coming off the open water. Pain & blindness are involved. But, man, is it fantastic.

Just walked home from the IAM show & webcast, which was lovely.
It's about 11 degrees, which is actually ok. Frozen soda, spit, and mop-water on the streets. I always love seeing the various ways people wrap themselves up in winter -- and the ways they cling to each other, for warmth, but also for balance-like all those layers are throwing them off kilter.
Everyone's a little more dependent in winter. That's nice in a town like this.

I've just brought my car to Manhattan for the first time...had planned on garaging it to save time and stress, but have been a little taken with the twice weekly parking shuffle.
Seasoned drivers in this City tell me this will wear off within a month, but I'm nearing the month mark and I have to say...I like it!
I've been tending more and more toward hibernation with each passing year. And when I live in New York, I carve out a path and then run it like a gerbil, seeing very little of this vast & deep island.
Knowing that I may be towed to the tune of $300 forces me out, searching new neighborhoods for a safe 3-day home for my little car.
In these 10 or so moves, I've seen neighborhoods I never would have- a testament to the diversity of the city & my own gerbility.

Just played at this great festival near my hometown in Wilmington, NC. Opened for a couple of films-most notably, "Mississippi Damned". Holy cow.

Dense, elegant and FULL of light.

Anyway, met some lovely people and appreciated my homeland anew.

Beautiful.

Whatever this day is... may it bring light.

Maybe it will. Maybe I have to bring the light.

Can I manufacture my own? I can... but the parts that build that humming little machine are from outside, from elsewhere. You have to hunt them down-from memory, from the ethos. Ego blinds and one needs eyes for this.

Light kills ego. Ego covers light. Where's the way out when you're trembling, anxious with the weight of yourself? What windows to open to let it diffuse?

I grope until I find them and then take a deep, sweet breath.

2 days ago, I figured out how to get onto my roof.

Since moving back to the South, partially for more nature, I haven't gotten a bit of it. No hiking or starry skies.

I've been working, working out, taking lessons, planning, but not--I repeat, NOT taking in the great outdoors.

Tonight, our first night in the 50's, I crawled onto the roof with a cup of tea and watched a few stars twinkle until I got sleepy.
It was a balm to an unsettled feeling that has been set in like a fever since I got here. It was like the watch to the guy in the time-deprivation chamber. It was sanity.

I'm just heading home from another 2 weeks out playing for folks. I love it. Spring was half-awake as I left Nashville, but micro-retreated with every mile north I drove. I, however, was opening.
A friend showed me the first crocus of the year that they had seen in Peekskill. It was in a straw flower bed with a little ice still lingering. Half thawed lakes in Massachusetts, long hours mulling over current life issues with friends, great gigs with people who listened.
I am grateful.

In my travels since October 15th, I have seen flashy beach towns (Miami & Cocoa Beach),demure beach towns (Naples & Charleston) crocodile saturated swampy grasslands (the Everglades), a tiny and lovely cow-town (Eatonton, GA). And the fact has been refreshed in my mind that people are people, yes. But folks are so different region to region.
We mold to our surroundings. We talk slower if there's always time to talk slower. We act like survivors if always tricky to get by.
We act as though there's a bubble around us if there are always too many people around to process.
It's supply and demand.
It's beautiful.
It is fairly animal, totally honest. Of course we hedge it with our adherence to or rebellion against cultural expectations
I love it when what I think is unique to me turns out to be a reasonable, even predictable response to my environment or situation. It puts me in my place in the healthiest way, like having a wise old man sit me down and tell me the truth.

I remembered my frame today. I listened...and there I was. I had to get really quiet. Then I heard shallow breathing. I saw the little purple vessel in my wrist flutter. I blinked in slow motion and saw the world go black, then return. I felt around where the hair comes out of my head and followed a few strands down ''til they slipped out of my fingers-saw the prints on those fingers.I drank a swallow of ice water and felt the chill run through the pipes in my throat. It was fun.
Then I remembered some advice from one of John Piper's teachers. He said, "Forget yourself and do your work." Now, when I do that, I notice the world-how burdened my coworkers at the restaurant are by the menial tasks that occupy us. I saw Abu straining to reach the top shelf, Magnolia standing, legs in pain, while she waited to clean the bathroom after each person. I had the energy to care.
Why in the world would God care to liberate me from myself? Why in a tangible way, would He give me such a gift? I'm sure there are plenty of answers out there. But, at the spot where the rubber meets the road, I am baffled at the difference between me relying only on the earth and me relying on what is essentially a mystery. I am more solid leaning against a Spirit and unsteady leaning against the tangible.

It's been over a year since I wrote anything. And, you know, no foul, because people are not trampling my website. Plenty of grass growing here. I don't mind and I miss them at the same time.
Do you understand?

I love being left alone. Completely alone. But, at the one am's of my life and when the ink is still wet on the page--during those moments, I wish I had not isolated. I wish there were people to understand that water just came out of a rock. That it does not flow readily here, yet it is.
What stirred this pot?
I was just chosen to play in front of a bunch of people with whom I think I share a great deal. A crowd before whom I don't have to pull punches or edit. How is it so?
How is it that this is such a rare, precious gift?
That safety is so hard to come by?

I am hopeful and grateful for any pocket of people who have sat long enough in the dark to give place to the things that drive one there-the incongruencies of life that rub the skin off our arms-that leave us raw and bleeding while demanding that we wear gold bracelets, sip champagne, and smile in a open-air cafe.

I am raw most of the time.

Never more so than when I am trying not to be.

Anxiety = trying not to be

"Be anxious for nothing..."