Serve the Song

I can’t remember a time when there wasn’t a song playing on repeat in my head.

I taught myself to play guitar by working out the parts I heard in my head that weren’t on the records. Whether it was Van Morrison’s ‘Astral Weeks’ or Jimmy Eat World’s ‘Clarity,’ when I fall in love with records I fall hard.

Growing up in Wichita, there are world class musicians in every living room. I was blessed to sit next to and learn to listen with musicians who’d been playing twice as long as I’d been alive. My favorite places were friends homes who always had an instrument in arms reach, ready for spontaneous song.

Each weekend, when I would spend time with my Abuela, she would always ask for Guantanamera if I brought my guitar. My father came from Cuba as a refugee a week before his ninth birthday. Growing up in Wichita, as a first generation American midwest, scruffy haired, ear playing, basement and roots rock kid, I would strum something more Van Morrison than Celia Cruz. But it was ours.

I cut my teeth playing little country church Sunday mornings and punks with a PA and community center keys on Fridays. My approach to writing, performing and collaborating in music is to always serve the song. To paraphrase Madeline L’Engle - ‘All songs are sacred, but some are desecrated.’ The greatest music is less about perfectly performing, and more about about excellent listening.