Russell Bartlett: News
"If you wish to be loved, love."
--Lucius Seneca
Hello friends and music lovers everywhere!
Russ Bartlett here. I am alive and...well...well! Thanks to those of you who email, call, listen, twitter, skitter, knitter--and even purchase my songs. I am grateful beyond words. Although I am still writing, I have taken a reprieve from The rigors of The Road. After more than 20 years dedicated to songcraft, I have answered the call to pursue other things. Not at the complete exclusion of music (we are still working on a the next CD--yes, THAT cd, now almost four years in the making!), but certainly to the point of rumors of my "demise." (hard to get hurt when you don't have far to fall...). Someone tied my name to the Witness Protection Program in Alabama. Another had me digging graves in exchange for cheap cognac in West Texas (can't imagine how that one got started)....Still another had me listed among swine flu casualties. Really!
But, as that old Highwaymen song goes, "I'm livin' still," and my absence doesn't mean I've lost interest nor the passion. God forbid I ever find myself cured of the pernicious virus that makes dopes like me spend our lives drifting around this earth in pursuit of a song and an audience(I think the medical term for this virus is Dip-theria). Ah, the thrill of the chase. Naw, rather it's the recognition (like a Euphonium to the side of the cranium) that there are other sources of passion, joy and fulfillment in this miserable, beautiful, confusing, sweet life. Some enjoy football or golf (God bless ya, Mick!); I like to fish. Some like dogs, cats. I have a goat named Punkin that slurps sweet feed from the palm of my hand, then belches like a drunken roofer (I love her dearly). Some chase the almighty dollar. I've probably spent too much time trying to outrun it. Some make a home, a family, a simple (but consistent) life: they get up each morning and turn the next page. One day, one page at a time. They let others write the classics, the memorable quotes, the page-turning paragaphs. Neither is less significant than the other. It's just a matter of lacing up the shoes everyday that the Creator put on our feet.
As for me and the shoes I'm wearing these days? Well...see, I was blessed with this amazing family, including a bunch of kids that I find incredibly entertaining. And the call of duty to provide for them goes beyond the dictates of necessity (as a line in a song I heard once goes "love means more than calling home"). It is our duty, as fathers, to be front-and-center with our children, not stumblebumming around Holland, nor on stage in some guitar shack in Santa Monica (sorry Jim, ya know I love you & everyone at McCabes!). Yes, I love these experiences, to be sure, and will invariably return to them. But in the mean time, I need (read "want") to be with my brood as much as possible right now; to laugh, hurt, struggle, grow, chortle, grimace, huddle and cuddle with them brings more satisfaction (or perhaps just a different kind of satisfaction?) than any song I will ever compose (unless, of couse, I ever happen to compose anything as brilliant as "Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road"...).
Otherwise, "here" is the place God wants me for this season. And who am I to disagree? I love the way my ol' pal Townes Van Zandt touches on this in his song "High Low and in Between":
There is the highway
And the homemade lovin' kind
And the highway's mine
Us ramblers will get the travelin' done
You fathers build with stones
That stand and shine
Heaven's where you find it
And you can't take too much with you
Oh but daddy don't you listen
It's just this highway talkin'
Townes was a true musical genius, and I hold his work up there with Bob Dylan and Hank Williams--perhaps higher. His poetic genius, his dedication to his craft--at the expense of absolutely everything else in life was, in many ways, unrivaled. I was blessed to have known and performed with him (albeit briefly). But I remember at his funeral, in Forth Worth, when his brother (Bill) spoke. He said "Townes said that his legacy was his incredible catalogue of songs. But you know, Townes was wrong about that; his legacy is his children."
I never forgot that. And as counter-intuitive as that notion may seem to those of us in awe of Townes' body of work, Bill was absolutely right. Our children are our greatest creation (JT, Will and Katie Belle--God bless you guys).
Now, before you good folks write me off your I-Tunes libarary, please take heart. I will be posting rough versions (MP3s) of the songs from "Dark Horse," one at time a time, on my blog (you will be able to link or listen here). The first song, "The Story of your Life," will be posted first.
As for live performances, I have neither management nor a booking agent these days. I am the Lone Ranger (with a small "l" & "r" and a BIG task). But I will return in 2010 to the same folks festivals I have played for years. So please stay tuned and thank you for your patience and kind words.
Be safe and sound well!
God bless,
Russ Bartlett
Austin, TX