San Diego Music Awards nominees

Well, last night I headed out to the San Diego Music Awards at Viejas. Joined World Music nominee "Kharmaman" Chris Vitas' entourage for dinner at the steakhouse, awards show immediately following.
Show opened with a blast and the bass in my chest from San Diego's shock-rock band The Burning of Rome, complete with real pig heads on stakes (see photo above). Kharmaman's CD nomination, iKharma, featured my violin poem (posted here on February 12) and was designed by San Diego's finest Martin Lindsay—there he is right there and he's extra extra ordinaire! He's the guy


who made me grin so big! His one-liners weren't half bad.

Anyway, before the show was over, Chris pulls his trigger finger because he didn't win. Next year for sure, Chris.


Great get-your-money's-worth performance by the "queen of steam" Best Blues CD nominee Michele Lundeen and a super-big stompin' hard


congratulations to Missy Andersen for her debut CD nominated in Best Blues Album. Sure wish she had won so I could say I have a song on an SDMA album. Bet my co-writer Heine Andersen wished the same thing. Well, we'll all dig in and get back to work on our new music for next year! In the meantime, more on pig heads next post.

PHOTO RIGHT: Heine Andersen live at Belly Up Tavern. ABOVE: Missy Andersen

the song video link

Forgot to give it to you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5i9OdepTSRU

my blues on youtube now

Whoa . . . I been away awhile. Well, the blues done got me where I live.
Mold. The real thing, black and moist and on the move. When it gets to me too much. . . . you know, life's little surprises, well I just lie down and close my eyes before I'm blue all over. After blue comes grey. And from that I gotta stay away! Finally got all the mold outa my house and I got a brand new 6x6 hole in my kitchen ceiling that used to be most of the bathroom floor. Don't need no intercom no more! The kids can hear me now.

Anyway, the good news is I'm singing the blues on youtube! Yep, I
recorded "Love Leave Me" in my home studio (no mold in there thank
goodness!) and everyone who's seen it and heard it likes it. I am interested in
knowing who listens and what they think, so please comment if you
have any time at all.

Til next time . . . and I'll try not to be so long.

Yours in the blues.

Stand Up and Dance recorded by Missy Andersen

Hey! Miss Missy Andersen, San Diego's most bubbly blues diva, just got back from her second tour in Denmark in time for her CD release party at Humphrey's (By The Bay) Backstage Lounge, April 30, at 8 p.m. Heine Andersen and I teamed up on a delta blues tune called "Stand Up and Dance" and the combination of Heine's back-woods guitar and Missy's deep-south delivery, make for a nice hot fire. You know where I'll be Thursday night! Come on down and listen to Missy. . . she's a sassy girl singin' and moanin' some of San Diego's best blues!

Pie in the sky

The other day, the idiom "pie in the sky" popped into my head as the first line of a poem. I googled it today and found that it first appeared in a song! Here is the short story and song lyrics.

Meaning: A promise of heaven, while continuing to suffer in this life.

Origin:This is an American phrase and was coined by Joe Hill in 1911. Hill was a Swedish-born itinerant labourer who migrated to the USA in 1902. He was a leading light of the radical labour organisation The Industrial Workers of the World - known as the Wobblies, writing many radical songs for them. The phrase appeared first in Hill's The Preacher and the Slave, which parodied the Salvation Army hymn In the Sweet Bye and Bye. The song, which criticized the Army's theology and philosophy, specifically their concentration on the salvation of souls rather than the feeding of the hungry, was popular when first recorded and remained so for some years.

Long-haired preachers come out every night,
Try to tell you what's wrong and what's right;
But when asked how 'bout something to eat
They will answer with voices so sweet:

Chorus
You will eat, bye and bye,
In that glorious land above the sky;
Work and pray, live on hay,
You'll get pie in the sky when you die.

The starvation army they play,
They sing and they clap and they pray
'Till they get all your coin on the drum
Then they'll tell you when you're on the bum:

Holy Rollers and jumpers come out,
They holler, they jump and they shout.
Give your money to Jesus they say,
He will cure all diseases today.
If you fight hard for children and wife
Try to get something good in this life
You're a sinner and bad man, they tell,
When you die you will sure go to hell.

Workingmen of all countries, unite,
Side by side we for freedom will fight;
When the world and its wealth we have gained
To the grafters we'll sing this refrain:

You will eat, bye and bye,
When you've learned how to cook and to fry.
Chop some wood, 'twill do you good,
And you'll eat in the sweet bye and bye.

The phrase wasn't taken up until the Second World War, when it began to be used figuratively to refer to any prospect of future happiness which was unlikely ever to be realized. From phrases.org.uk

Home Inside a Violin

I imagine a home inside a violin
sleeping in the dark hole
until the case opens and
I'm awakened by the
squeak and screech
of a 4-year-old's
chubby hand on the bow
the kiss of hair and strings
the swell, ebb and flow of a virtuoso
perfumed hair and swish
of a barely-there red-satin dress
the chop of a tobacco-chewing
hollerer from the hills
the booming stomp of boots
pounding a wood-plank floor
I am loved every day
tucked under a chin
against the warmth of skin
hovering above a shoulder
a jostling ride, rocking
every which way in the box
reeling and shaking
the singing vibrations
the grunting and sweat
the depths the rhythm
the strain the offering
breathing
someone's soul

2-12-09
©2009 Hattie Wilcox
Violinist and inventor of the Viper Mark Wood ©2008 Hattie Wilcox

the music in nature

The ficus tree outside my front door has been the home of hummingbird nests for many years. Thought you might like to see a photo of the one I found this week. Photo taken this morning by Stella Pai.

Good news on the blues music front is brewing.