Some weeks into the process, a few words about what's happening here might help.
As in previous entries, you may see the word "Revised" recur: on concluding my last with a singer born in Alaska who apparently came in from the cold as a kid of 12 -- "she convinced her parents to let her 'see more of the world' by spending some time with an aunt in Hawaii" (a smart move noted in some Jewel FAQ compiled by Aaron Walker by 1996) -- I made time for more of her.
It was also apparent the Wikipedia and a quick personal note were best posted separately.
Time is obviously limited, so some entries are likely to grow like this.
So's my budget. Where it reasonably allows me to write up very new releases and discoveries, I shall on the strength of a monthly allowance for this, but for all the latest (last night alone I found three more singers I'd love to hear one day), I'll simply frequently update the blogroll with the best music sites I find among hundreds.
By "best", I mean those closest to criteria I find important: accessible, down-to-earth writing; constructive criticism rather than devastating put-downs; and a broad open-minded attentiveness to the artists themselves rather than the standards and often self-serving aims of the music industry's major labels or even the charts.
No more logging about me and those in my life, I've declared, apart from thoughts occasionally almost invariably tucked away in the orchard. That holds good, but it's evident the musicians I choose to write up at any time have a reason for being there in my own daily experience.
If it shows, there's no point in any pretence at critical "objectivity", which is always nonsense anyway: it doesn't exist, so if there's a good reason, I'll say why.
Moreover, these entries constitute a modest ambition and a counter-point to my "working life", where I'd like to recover ways of sharing the very deep pleasure and sense of adventure that enabled me successfully to make a living for several years writing mainly about music in the '70s.
I then developed an approach I still have, "translating" difficult terminology and breaking down artificial barriers to broaden my own horizon in a way others clearly found appealing -- otherwise I'd have earned no money.
I'll write no more directly about a major turning point in my private life, but it means profound changes in outlook, direction and several aspects of behaviour for me: that's very apparent a month on when I'm still taking it in and know there's much more to come.
Some have called it "religious", I much prefer to avoid such words, unless applied to others who use them, but feel a strong need for the simplest and most natural ways of being in a highly artificial environment: city life and its pressures.
Music is an art of immense richness and often complexity, but also perhaps the most universal and accessible of our human arts and "languages" from the very earliest times. I have a little more to say on this.
Staying focussed and very "real" in a world prone to abstractions and where ideas, our own and those of others, often take us a step off the ground rather than one along any path is not easy.
Neither's music sometimes: it can be as full of paradox as life, but has an advantage over words sometimes; they can't touch it.
For tonight, that'll do, I'm very wary of "over-thinking" now! It's a bit late to go out and stare at the sky, which is clouded anyway.
So I'm going to do something odd with Madonna. Yes, that one, quite a slice of American life...
If she's worth an entry for having done something unusual herself, I'll let you know.
10:41:42 PM 
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