(Woodland Hills, CA) - Long hot and strange summer we’ve had here on the new mountaintop in Woodland Hills, as has everyone else in the world—either too hot or too dry or too wet or too cold—all of us in this crazy boat fueled by climate change, pandemic, global violence, changing times. Seems to me these are all manifestations of some deeper imbalance or shift with different facets. But I’m just one old lady on a hilltop with some instruments and some pencils, so I can only speak for myself. And I’m fully involved still moving into this magical and strange cabin up a steep driveway where I’ve built a new studio part one, and am finishing part 2 as I write.
It is true that my studies have continued. I managed to survive piano class online, a magnificent history of American popular music, and a summer drawing boot camp. The local community colleges here are superb and I’ve met some excellent teachers. Drawing boot camp was quite a revelation, being an art fanatic for most of my life: all it did was make it more so, but also got me over my fear of drawing.
And for my cats… The last of my mob of Five, the original feral kittens adopted many many years ago passed in the spring, and a new duo came to take up residence on the hill with me: the mysterious Luz and then little Marty, both of whom are growing like crazy and as a blessing, are both quite sweet and love each other very much. The new young cats have to represent and live on for the others who have gone before them, and like many of you guys out there, I’ve had magnificent pets in my life. These two are delightful. Cid Bullens was here, and we built a giant cat tower for them, see illustration…
Speaking of Cidny Bullens, the Refugees will be starting a new album in the winter of 2021, which promises to be adventurous, extremely musical and full of surprises. We also will be doing some virtual appearances at Folk Alliance West in October and hopefully Folk Alliance in the spring. Look for some other appearances in different formats from the Refugees as well next year, pretty exciting.
Speaking of next year, the new Wendy Waldman cd is finally in its last days of editing and Rob Hoffman and I will be mixing it into the winter. We expect it to be out first quarter of January. Yes, I promised fall of 2021 but then I had a little health setback which cost me some time—just an appendectomy in April that threw off my schedule, all is well and healed now.
The Longhouse production house is going full on, we are mixing, at last, the magnificent and fun collaboration between Mietek Szczesniak, HB Barnum, Life Choir, and me. We expect this to also be released in the first quarter of the new year. We’ve released two singles/videos from that project, with two more to go. You can see “There’s Water for You” and “Bless This World” on a number of formats.
In addition to that project, I’ve been most blessed and honored to produce the new cd by the Herculeons, the legendary John Cowan of New Grass Revival-now the bassist for the Doobie Brothers, and Andrea Zonn, violinist and singer extraordinaire working with James Taylor. We tracked this album at Sound Emporium in Nashville in April of this year, with a mighty crew of musicians beside John and Andrea: Greg Morrow on drums, Darrell Scott on guitars, Abraham Parker on everything, Gary Prim on piano, Matt Rollings on piano, and the great Reese Wynans on organ, plus some other guests. It was a fantastic experience, and will be a great album. We’re mixing it out here at the Longhouse.
Finally, we’re working with a brilliant songwriter-artist, Jared Stein, who writes in Hebrew and in English, and has assembled a marvelous group of songs that we recorded up here on the hill with Abraham Parker, Scott Babcock, Jared Stein, Carl Sealove, Justin, Mike, and Jamie Stein. This album is going to surprise many people. The songs are gorgeous—a world music cd that we’re thoroughly enjoying doing.
So, still moving in, still in construction, trying to study, mix, record, plant, stay safe, get to yoga class, remain optimistic, work for good, and encourage my friends and family to keep on keeping on. Wishing everyone the very best for the end of summer and beginning of fall.
See you out there!
WW, Luz, and Marty