Occasionally, you stumble on something beautiful, often by the grace of friends, and it needs sharing.  A little name-dropping here, but that can’t be helped. Context is occasionally very important, and in this case the setting was essential.
Last night we went to a solstice celebration at Laurell Hamilton’s and Jon Green’s house. It was an R.S.V.P. affair and the invitation noted that “entertainment” would begin at 7:00 PM. Laurell and Jon have a nice house, a good bit of grassy area for a yard. A good bit. They had erected a tent over a platform, with tables and chairs. Food—good food—was catered.
It became clear that the “entertainment” was not coincidental. Three women occupied a corner of the tent (big tent) with guitars, a keyboard, a few drums, a few Apple computers, microphones…
…and an undeniable presence. Evening listening to them doing sound checks, you could tell something special was in the offing.
No more teasing. Here’s the link to S.J. Tucker the main anchor of the trio, which was comprised of her and two women who formed a combo called GBMOJO—Ginger Doss and Bekah Kelso.
Basically, they do music in the pagan, earth goddess, eco strain. I don’t care about that so much. Lyrics, to my ear, are secondary to the sound, something I’ve gone on about before. Music to me is a purely abstract art form and words more often than not just get in the way. For me. I’m weird, I know, but there it is. This is not to say sometimes the words are absolutely essential, but only that the first and often only thing I listen to is the total sound. The music.
And they make music. Precise, highly trained, beautiful music.
But that is not all! S.J. Tucker and her significant other, a gentleman named Kevin K’ Wiley, work together as something called Fire & Strings. They firedance. Twirling orbs of flame, dancing with fire, acrobatically risking scorchment…
When it got dark enough, they left the tent (I said the yard was big) and put on a show for us. It was very hot, St. Louis hot, and they were working with flame. An amazing performance.
Then back to the music.
Excellent evening, a wonderful way to welcome summer. We bought two CDs and I will keep an eye peeled for Ms. Tucker’s shows. So I’m doing some recommending here. Take it and look them up and give your ears a treat.
Happy summer.