Raul Malo "I'll Be Home For Christmas"

I haven’t started shopping for Christmas yet, my bad.  It's hard to feel like the holiday is upon us, when the weather in Texas suggests autumn at best.  Guess I should get busy.  On a personal note, one doesn’t think about getting a flu shot when the temperatures are in the 70s; it still feels pre-winter, but next year, I will know better! Today’s posting serves several purposes, the first being that it is a taste of Christmas from the masterful and mellifluous Raul Malo. Are you hip to his 2007 Christmas Album,  Marshmallow World & Other Holiday Favorites. It is a must have! Fresh Films, an outfit out of Nashville taped one of the songs from that album “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” and they dedicate their version to our servicemen and women. We wish them Godspeed and pray for their safety and their rapid return to their families stateside.

The hot news is that The Mavericks will be reuniting for a tour, and who knows, maybe even an album. When the Mavericks formed in 1989, it could be said that they were way ahead of their time. The 90s found fame, fortune and awards galore. The split came in 2003, and was amicable. Raul emerged as a solo player and Robert Reynolds and Paul Deakin continued to record as well. The reunion tour will start at Stagecoach in April in Indio, California, and then they will hit North America and Europe.  It makes me giddy to think of their power and energy. You just have to have a good time when you see them live, the music is so buoyant. For the most part that is, there is always room for the ballad, like we bring you today. “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” simply stops time. Here is wishing that you will be reuniting with dear friends and family members from far away this year for the holidays, too.

- Jessie Scott

Danny Barnes "Caveman"

I hesitate to bring this up so close to the holidays, when pigging out is de rigueur, but have you heard about the Paleo Diet?  You eat only what a caveman might have eaten.  Fruits, veggies, nuts meat, fish, with no processed foods.  I think there is merit in this theory.  Actually, for all our advancement, civilization, and sophistication, I don’t think our bodies have actually morphed into a space where we digest the crap that lines the shelves of our supermarkets. Shop the perimeter, that’s where the fresh stuff lives. I have a pact for Christmas this year; eat luxuriously, but don’t eat junk. Wish me luck. Here is the deal with the Caveman Diet.

Danny Barnes evidently concurs with his song “Caveman,” though he isn’t talking about food, he postulates that we haven’t changed from those days of yore. BTW, Danny put out a new album last month called Rocket. And you know he does rock it. Whether it is solo, band, back during his days as a Bad Livers, or playing on stage with the likes of Robert Earl Keen, Tim O’Brien, or the Dave Matthews Band. In his blog, he addresses ‘playing nicely with others.’ We filmed “Caveman” at Americana Fest in 2010. It is not on the new album, but can be found on last year’s Pizza Box. I recommend both albums highly, actually, along with the rest of his ever engaging and arresting catalog.

-- Jessie Scott

Jude Johnstone "Wounded Heart"

I heard that a friend of mine is getting remarried. He turned 80 last year. I am entranced by the idea that he has fallen in love again, even more so, that he is looking forward. What a wonderful thing to want a new chapter in your life, especially at that age. It just goes to show that you can’t keep the human spirit down. It can fly free, no matter when, and no matter what the odds are against it doing so. Not that it is always so. There is a curse on many folks that I know; those that have previously given their hearts and souls only to have them crashed on the rocks along the shore. Turbulent seas make for gun shy singles.

Jude Johnstone came to see us during the filming Music Fog did back in May at the Cherokee Creek Music Festival outside Llano, TX. Jude dug in for a song that was originally released on her debut album Coming Of Age, in 2002, “Wounded Heart.” She played this most heartbreaking song, of damage impossible to repair. Sometimes the wall is just too hard to scale. If it sounds familiar, it is because it was featured in the Lifetime/ABC television series Army Wives, but the sentiment is not relegated to just one sector by any means. If there is one thing I wish you as we approach the holidays, it is this. Let your heart be light. Allow for the possibility of love in your life. It will thaw you, it will make you feel like anything is possible, it will make you whole. Let love in.

- Jessie Scott