“Sometimes I love the road, sometimes, I’m just tired
I can feel like God’s own chosen, then long for a nice, warm fire
Sometimes I’m full of passion for the things that I believe
Sometimes I wonder whatever happened to that young girl that was me
”
Dear Friends,
Fifty years. Half a century. What a long, amazing journey it has been so far!
This coming weekend, SATURDAY, April 13th, I’ll be gathering with friends and family and our community to celebrate this milestone in my working life. It’s also a CD release celebration of “Singing the News” and “Into the Promise of Morning”. We’ll have a concert as a benefit for the Bellingham Food Bank at 7:00 at Bellingham Unitarian Fellowship. I’ll be joined by my daughters, Jen and Kristin, as well as Janet Stecher and Susan Lewis (Rebel Voices), Phil Heaven, Jeff Wilson, Tom Rawson, Jan Peters, Laura Smith, Kitty King, Marie Eaton, Meryle Korn, Women With Wings, Ellen van der Hoeven, and Scott Slaba.
Details are on my website and as a Facebook event. Please share!
Our daughter, Kristin Allen-Zito, celebrated the release of her newest, the EP “Bridge” April 7th, at the Firefly in Bellingham. You can read more about the event, and see some old photos of Kristin with her sister Jen and me here. You can also hear songs from both of these amazing musicians:
https://www.lindasongs.com/jen-and-kristin-allenzito
There’s a great article about Kristin and me and our new recording projects in the latest issue of What Up! Magazine (a Bellingham periodical). April’s edition isn’t online yet, but likely will be in the near future.
Entertainment News Northwest’s Margaret Bikman did a fine article about my work this month. It’s on the “Welcome” page of my web site: https://www.lindasongs.com/
From this page you can also visit the “scrapbook” link to see some highlights of these fifty years of my working life.
So that’s the news. But here’s the thing, and I think I can wrap this up with these last verses of “The Long Way Home”. I wrote this song many years ago, and I still think it is one of the more autobiographical songs I’ve written. It continues to feel deeply true. I could not have had fifty years as a working musician without the support of so many of you.…financially, emotionally, spiritually. This is true of most of us who follow this calling to be artists in this fragile world, so in need of vision, truth and hope. This is a celebration of you, who cared enough to send a kind word, make a contribution, buy a CD or host or attend a concert. You have kept the light burning for us all.
Never knew it would take so long to get back to where I started
Never knew how the road would bend, and leave me broken-hearted
Never planned the route too well, just followed each day’s yearning
Always seemed a rocky road that set my soul to burning
See Old Crow sittin’ there, he’s laughin’ every step I take
He knows how the wind can take you, and give your soul a shake
Spin you ‘round and upside down, until your dreams are scattered
Makes me want to hold my ground, and find the roots that matter
Sometimes I wonder whatever made me step out here.
Those nights when the moon is dark, and there’s nobody here but fear.
‘Cause it’s a long and a lonely road if you think you’re all alone.
Then I think of you, my friends, in my heart and in my bones.
Oh, rock me easy, I’m taking the long way home.
Oh, rock me easy, I’m taking the long way home.
---“The Long Way Home” from The Long Way Home
In love and gratitude,
Linda