Hello world. Yikes! It’s already February! I am dreadfully behind in updating this blog….I just haven’t stopped!
So I’m just going to plow forward and I’m going to do my best to reconstruct the past several months, although I must admit I could get the times and places mixed up. My mind feels like it’s been put in a blender!
Most recently, in January I performed at a few benefits, one being a huge gathering in San Diego for my friend Ken Druck’s foundation. It was mostly speakers including Tony Robbins, Ken Blanchard, Michael Beckwith and others in an all day event called “The Secret To Your Best Year Ever”.
My son Ernest just happened to be in LA recording his great new album, so I had him drive down and come perform with me at the San Diego arena.
Prior to this I had decided to spend two weeks at a wonderful place called “Optimum Health” where I completely surrendered into a program to detox myself from sugar, caffeine and all other bad stuff I’d been enjoying too much of.
I had a great time on the wonderful tour of the UK and Ireland. Thanks to all the fans who came out to the shows!
But before I do that I want to mention that the BNC Creativity Stargaze will definitely be happening this year! I’ll be putting together a page on my site with info on how to sign up and some coming highlights.
And speaking of ‘creativity’, here’s something I wanted to share that someone sent me.
This amazing piece of writing captures the essence of “creativity” and how to be ok with not knowing the answer as a way of finding the answer:
"As our insights into the nature of the human mind-brain have deepened we are discovering that every act of perception, naming and knowing is a creative act. Moment to moment we organize the multidimensional chaos of our world into meaningful, and manageable interpretations organized in mental images, and symbolic notations. To look beyond our mental constructs back into the creative vortex of the mind-brain's fundamental chaos and to observe how perceptions form and coalesce into images, ideas and creative insights that are then further shaped and molded by our beliefs and intentions is fundamental to understanding and mastering our participation in the creative process.
To do this work requires courage. Courage is the key that opens the mind. While the closed mind limits itself to the familiar and fixed compartments of ideas, views, beliefs, and habits the open mind encompasses a space of limitless possibilities. The open mind is not for the faint hearted. It takes courage both to hold what you know and like lightly, to behold what you have long denied and to encounter and befriend what appears strange or unfamiliar. With courage we are equipped to fearlessly know our fear, and to feel compassion towards the burning pain of our anger. Within the open mind there are few certainties and many possibilities.
The simple act of observation is the key to transforming our lives. Observation suspends our conventional beliefs, conceptions and habit
allowing us to encompass with equal measure the objects that appear to our minds, the subject who is observing and the process of knowing itself. Thus we equip ourselves to embrace, experience and understand the process of knowing in all its multidimensionality. This comprehensive way of viewing ourselves and our experience allows new kinds of knowledge to emerge and reveals many previously ignored possibilities in our lives."
-- Joel & Michelle Levey from Inner Science & Technology: A Guide to the
Awakening Mind Now I realize, like me, you may have to read that three times. But wow! It’s pretty chock full of stuff!
Now on to the adventures of the past two months!
First off I spend almost my entire September doing a promo tour to talk about the “Prism Tour”, which was a great success!
I started off flying in to perform at the final “Heaven & Earth” BBC TV show on September 1st and just ended up staying over as I had the Ken Bruce show for BBC Radio 2 to tape in the middle of the month and then the NIMIC (Northern Ireland Songwriting retreat) at the Giant’s Causeway at the end of September. My previous blog/newsletter left me off just heading to Northern Ireland. Here are some pictures from that great adventure.
Here I am taking a bite out of the Giant’s Causeway!
I made my way through many radio and TV stations with my excellent Northern Ireland publicist James Rollings.
Here I’m having dinner with JD Souther and James in Belfast:
Here I am dancing on the bridge at the Giant’s Causeway….fun huh?
Here I am with the legendary Ross Graham at the end of Sept 07. I was invited to teach at NIMIC’s Songwriting retreat at the Giant’s Causeway.
I’m excited to be working with Ross on March 10th 2008, in Nashville for a concert to celebrate Belfast/Nashville sister cities! And also we are doing a similar concert at SXSW in Austin on March 12th 2008. You can check the details out on
my site.
Anyway…back to trying to catch you up! Here’s another shot of me and Father Brian D’Arcy who did a special radio show on “Prism” just before Christmas.
Then there was this fabulous fun at one of the oldest Pubs in Belfast.
Tim O’Brian and myself performed and here we are with that legend Gerry Andersen and of course JD Souther who graced us with his presence!
Here I am with the fabulous George Jones.
Back in the USSR…I was a guest on the last taping of the Heaven & Earth Show on September 3. Had a great chat with Gloria Hunniford and performed “God Is In”
Heaven and EarthAnd then I had great fun performing on the Ken Bruce Show. We ran into some great musicians from New Orleans, Jon Cleary, who plays in Bonnie Riatt’s band was just finishing his taping!
I was thrilled to have Chris Leslie, Maart Allcock, Simon Nicol, and Jerry Conway in my band! Here we are with Esther from Proper Music and Richard Wooton my PR genius in the UK.
Maila Vale Studio is a very historic studio that hosted Bing Crosby (among many others). Maart Allcock miraculously put the “Emergency Legendary Band” together with two phone calls. Maart on bass, Chris Leslie on Mando and Vocals, Simon Nicol on guitar and vocals, and Gerry Conway on drums.
Left to Right: Maart, Chris, BNC, Simon & Getty at Maida Vale studios. You can listen again at:
BBC Radio2 Music Club I also had a really great string quartet on the Ken Bruce show. Here I am pretending I have a clue how to read music!
Thank you Patrick Doyle (see in my “tour” section about the upcoming show at the Royal Albert Hall on October 28th. It’s an evening celebrating Patrick’s stunning array of scores in some great movies. Here’s Patrick and I at Maida Vale Studio with Mike Walter, the incredible engineer!
As if that wasn’t enough fun…the next day I got to go to tape the Jools Holland Radio show. I’ve been wanting to meet Jools for ages! Here we are after recording “Sir Duke” with his amazing band!
After also taping the Simon Mayo show at BBC Radio 2 (great questions!) another stop on the non-stop Promo tour was a trip up to Scotland!
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