Somebody's Darling "Another Two Step"

San Francisco is such a tangle of influences, both sacred and profane. The air is damp and chilly, the beauty of the landscape unmistakable, the buildings are majestic. With the ever present thought of earthquakes, it seems to drive home the concept of living every day - because you just never know, coloring existence with an unspoken immediacy. I am hanging in S.F. with my friend Carren Sheldon, who is a sister really, as we think alike and even look alike. We worked together on the radio in Orlando at WMMO in the 90's. We were driving across the Golden Gate Bridge, when we discovered neither of us had ever walked it. We pulled the car off on the Marin side and parked. Sweatshirts pulled close, hoods up. We took off alongside a bunch of hearty souls who had embarked from Daly City, CA on a 3-Day for the Cure walk, a Susan B. Komen fundraiser. There were monitoring cops from San Jose with their regular uniforms adorned with the addition of pink sequins, pink tutus, and pink head wraps. They rode their bicycles on the bridge checking that their minions were safe. Somewhere halfway across, I felt very blessed to be watching the weather consume the bridge, seeing the churning water below, feeling the nip as the wind whipped. Alive. Man, but that weather really takes it out of you. And doing 20 miles a day to raise money, we Music Foggers commend you 3-Day walkers for the marathon pace, towards a cause that has touched so many families.

Photo Credit: Will Pearson

I want to take you back a couple of weeks now to the Americana Music Festival in Nashville, where we still haven't brought you everything we filmed. One of the bands we recorded on the last day was Dallas' Somebody's Darling. They create a well oiled groove, and feature a honey-voiced yet tough presence in lead singer Amber Farris. The new album was produced in Nashville by Georgia Satellite Dan Baird, and that's a real good fit for their sound and intensity, cause they roll...but in a country meets rock kind of way. And they were nominated for two 2010 Dallas Observer Music Awards, “Best Female Vocalist” and “Best Country Act.” We predict big things! This song's energy would have been a helpful accompaniment to our Golden Gate Bridge trek, "Another Two Step."

- Jessie Scott

Tommy Emmanuel "Jolly Swagman"

There is a Haiku to packing for a road trip. Lately, it seems I don't have time to unpack, before I am repacking for the next journey. But the idea is to have items to layer, and at least one of every length sleeve. What a pain to drag too much with you. Though, I must say, I really like the elegance of living from a suitcase. It is ever amazing that we of the pack rat generation can live simply, with all our needs met from a 21" rectangular structure. The road trip this time is taking me to the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in San Francisco, which starts today. I am really looking forward to it, as most times, Music Fog is holed up behind closed doors at these events. (Hey, we're WORKING here!) But this trip, I just get to float from stage to stage, and experience a whole bunch of acts. Music discovery and immersion...manna from heaven. Priceless!

Knowing it is a short trip provides for an easier time of packing. Less so, when you are traveling from Down Under, as does Australian guitar wizard, Tommy Emmanuel. The man does things that don't seem possible. As he uses all ten fingers, there are lots of nuances, and the sonics of an entire band can be replicated with his strumming and finger picking. He has been everywhere, with everyone. He was a child prodigy born into a musical family, starting to play at age four. The band with his brothers and sister supported the Emmanuel family from the time he was six years old. In 1962, Tommy heard the music of Chet Atkins, who was to become a mentor and fan of Tommy's music, though it was 15 years before they met! There were contributions to Air Supply, Men At Work, and others, as he was becoming known as one of the best modern guitar players in Australia. He launched his solo career with the issue of the album Up From Down Under in 1988. He toured extensively in the Pacific Rim and Europe, then finally broke through in the US in 1997, when an album, Midnight Drive, hit the Jazz chart.

Tommy's mentor, Chet Atkins, bestowed the title of "Certified Guitar Player" on Tommy in 1999 when he added the initials CGP to his name. There are only three others remaining worldwide, as the original five were John Knowles, Tommy Emmanuel, Steve Wariner, Jerry Reed and of course Chet himself. Tommy is a must see, and there are more Stateside dates before he heads for Shanghai. We were so happy to have him in the Music Fog house. I loved watching the jaws drop on Denise and Beans when he started to play! Here's "Jolly Swagman," which you can also find on the CD Center Stage.

- Jessie Scott

Cindy Bullens "Let Jesus Do the Talking"

There are giants that walk amongst us. They could be standing on line next to you right now at Trader Joe's. Cindy Bullens is one of them. She is game. She's got game, and she has had an amazing story. She left Massachusetts for Los Angeles, crashed a studio party, meeting Elton John there, which led to singing back up for him in the 70's for three of his tours. That spawned a solo career. She was nominated for a Grammy for her contribution to the Grease soundtrack. Her second nomination for a Grammy came with a single from her first solo album, the song was "Survivor." If anything, that foretold her tale. She married and had two daughters, largely dedicating her life to them for the next decade. Reid is now 23. Sadly, Cindy's daughter Jessie passed in 1996 after a long illness, and a lot of the heartache and the questioning found its way into the 1999 album Somewhere Between Heaven and Earth. I couldn't listen to it without crying. Which I told Cindy after a performance in Boulder, CO. I think we were aware of being kindred spirits instantly. The next time I saw her was not long after that at the Cactus Café during a SXSW in Austin. She was a rocker chick personified. Walking with a swagger, slinging her Les Paul and her Strat.

Through the years she has swaggered, sweetly, among other giants as both a musician, and as a writer: Delbert McClinton, Ray Kennedy, Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, John Hiatt, Al Anderson, Radney Foster, Wendy Waldman, Deborah Holland, and even Elton John, who contributed house rocking piano to the title tune of her last album, Dream #29. Cindy is coming off the heels of The Refugees project (which we brought you when Music Fog was young), and she has just released her 7th solo CD, Howling Trains and Barking Dogs. She continues to work with the best and the brightest as she follows her unmistakably original path. She brought some of them to us during Americana Fest, George Marinelli on electric guitar, Michael Kelsh on guitar and dobro, and Chris Donahue on bass. The new album lives in the land of groove and restraint, and here is one of the tunes from it, "Let Jesus Do the Talking."

- Jessie Scott