After reading about Playing For Change and how they are working with street musicians, and how good they can be, I started looking for good buskers on YouTube. There is quite a variety of talent with uploaded videos. Some are bad, but some are really good. Here is Rachael Croft. At the time that I linked to this video it had been viewed just 1628 times. Have a look at the view counter to see if it is moving (if it has, I am certain it is not because of my link.)

Tim Buckley was one of my favourite singer/songwriters in the 1960s/early 70s. He was odd but had a very distinctive voice and style. He committed suicide in 1975. Tim had a son - Jeff Buckley. Jeff too was a favourite singer/songwriter. He put out one album before he tragically drown in the Mississippi River in 1997 at the age of 31. The album titled "Grace" was brilliant, but he will always be remembered for his version of the Leonard Cohen song "Hallelujah". This song is covered over and over again, but none equal his version. He had a sweet, sweet voice.

Morgan James enters this story by covering not just a Jeff Buckley song, but by paying tribute to him by covering the entire album - thoughtfully and with passion. At times Morgan sings as Jeff, and at other times she extends what he was trying to do - perfectly. I am a big fan of Jeff but I really appreciate her spin on his songs. Morgan's husband Jeff Wamble plays guitar throughout this session. He replicates "dead" Jeff's guitar sound very well.

OK, I could not resist putting up a video of Postmodern Jukebox (PMJ). Scott Bradlee the piano player is also the founder of PMJ. PMJ is a musical collective of about 70 performers. No two videos have exactly the same performing combination. There are multiple singers, at least three piano players and many multi-instrumentalists. Their hook is that they take a song from one genre, rework it and perform it in another genre. So, as in this video they take a fairly new Radiohead song and perform it as a vintage jazz tune. They are wildly popular these days with more than one touring group coming out of the collective.

Earlier I posted a video about Morgan James - she is one of the vocalists who work with Post Modern Jukebox. I originally sent this video to Bronwen because of the clarinet.

I might as well get all of my music tips out in the open this morning. Playing for Change is the brain child of Mark Johnson. Mark is a music producer from LA who came to the conclusion that some of the best music that he has heard is on the street. He put together the technology so that instead of bringing musicians to the studio, he could "take the studio to the street". For a single video he might record six street performers in different locations around the world and then mix them to create one arrangement. Think about this - guitar on the canal in Venice, vocals in Vancouver on the beach, rhythm in Kenya, and backup vocals from New Orleans. This is fun stuff.

Morgan James is a pretty good singer. At 14 she had a repertoire of 200 songs that she sang a capella in her home town restaurants. At 18, she was enrolled in the Julliard to become an opera singer. After graduation she worked in Broadway musicals. Now 36, she has put out a couple of albums and is doing a "whirlwind tour". She is the best singer that I have heard in a long time.

Finally saw the outlaw legend himself. Willie came to a casino in the valley and we had four tickets. The show was billed as Willie and Family. Family consists of "family" members that have toured with Willie for over 40 years. The lineup included his sister, Bobbie, on the piano; drummer Paul English, harmonicist Mickey Raphael and bassist Kevin Smith. Billy English joined in 2010 to help his brother Paul after he suffered a stroke the same year. Willie is now 82 year old and there have been rumoured health scares in the past 3 months that cancelled the early parts of this tour. He performed for a solid 75 minutes, running through many of the best songs in his vast catalog including: Angel Flying Too Close To The Ground, Back On The Road, and Crazy. A portion of the set was dedicated to old Hank Williams songs. Although it is difficult to find good young singers here in the valley, there are always legends flying through.

We are waiting impatiently for 7:30 AM PST to roll around. It would not have mattered what time was chosen for the online christmas morning meet-up on the web (aka FaceTime), we would have been impatient for that time to arrive.

To fill the few minutes before the call - we started christmas eve in the morning with a couple of hours of tennis. I expected to see more of the players dressed in red and wearing antlers, but it was just pretty typical drop-in tennis. When play was finished people seemed to sit, drink coffee and eat cookies for a little longer, and there were cheers of "Merry Christmas" as people drifted away, but otherwise a typical southern California morning here at Silver Sands.

The afternoon was spent picking up a few last minute supplies for christmas dinner and then off for christmas eve dinner at Fresh Agave one of the several good Mexican restaurants in the valley - ok, one of several Mexican restaurants that know how to make a good margarita and also serve good Mexican food. Dinner was with good friends from the San Francisco area, Amy and Robin. Amy is also my partner in crime with our little website venture.

I may have put my foot into christmas day. We have been invited to dinner with some other friends Ken and Carol (of Seattle). I have made a big fuss about turkey cooking bags - how easy they are to use and how wonderful the turkey cooks that the traditional cooking method is being nervously abandoned for the new method. If the turkey is not ready on time, if one morsel is not cooked perfectly I will be roasted on Boxing Day. i await my fate.

Listening to a lot of Dallas Green, You+Me, and City and Colour - all Dallas Green. I have managed to signup for Pandora One. Hope I can haul it back to Canada in the spring.

Two of my favourite musicians have come together to sing one of Canada's iconic songs (one of everybody's favourites). The song is Songbird, written my Gene McClelland and originally recorded by Anne Murray.

Kathleen Edwards was born in 1978 in Ottawa and after high school became a full time singer-songwriter and musician - a 20 year career recording and travelling. I admire those who stick to the dream and come out the other end healthy and sane. Today she runs a coffee cafe in Stittsville, Ontario - lets drop in.

Bahamas was born Afie Jurvanen in Toronto but was raised in Barrie, Ontario - in other words, a local boy.

Mid-sized drive yesterday, and best of all - Carol drove for two hours; I had a midday nap. The weather was much, much better - blue skies and dry pavement - 80MPH the whole way. We stayed at a Drury Inn, so some of you know what we had for dinner. The steamers were as good as ever. It is now 6:30AM and we are up and showered and ready to go. There is one more time change so we will easily be in Palm Desert by noon.

With not much to do last evening, Carol started planning the entertainment calendar for this winter. First up:

early December at a local casino; just cheap tickets.

We are only in Jackson trying to avoid the storm and it appears to be working. There was just enough rain yesterday to make me stop the car and remove the bicycle seats. I had forgotten to do this as we left home. We pulled into Jackson early did some laundry and went to bed. Austin TX for Saturday night. We will attempt to get into the Saxon Pub tomorrow night to listen to Bobby Whitlock and Coco Carmel. Bobby played with Derek and the Dominos and Bonnie and Delaney in the old days. Coco is just Coco.

A short driving day made even shorter by listening to Richard Dawkins narrate his auto-biography. An amazing life. One of the campaigns supported by Dawkins that I am most interested in is "Ask For Evidence". The thinking is that when you are presented with "claims", you should look for evidence that supports those "claims". You should do this for new drugs, diets, religion, Donald Trump. Here is the place to go Ask for Evidence.

After checking into the hotel, we walked to the music district and spent a couple of hours at Robert's Western World a honky-tonk and country bar. Most Nashville bars were closed for Thanksgiving, but the ones that were open were busy and hopping. Robert's Western World is three doors down from Tootsie's (closed) and was featuring "The 12 Hour 6th Annual Eileen Rose & Silver Threads Thanksgiving Show" - happy smiles on our faces. We stayed for hours 4 and 5 of the marathon, and they were still yakking, honking and singing everything in sight. The 82 and 80 year old 2-stepping couple at the next table were regulars out enjoying the music, the dancing and a couple of 2 dollar beers. Nice, just what you hope to see in Nashville.

Today we are off to Jackson Mississippi. Why? We are trying to get as far south as we can before we head into the storm that has hit northern Texas. The weather maps show that if I can get into southern Texas before turning west, we might miss a lot of bad weather. I am following the map at US Weather Service and it shows a clear path along the Rio Grande.

Today is Black Friday!

There is nothing too exciting to report about our first day on the road except for a nice visit with Bronwen and Eryn in Guelph. We all had lunch together. Bronwen gave Eryn a dill pickle and she really seemed to enjoy chewing and sucking on the vinegar. Occasionally her face would pucker up but she would keep on going.

The drive seemed long, with fog in the morning as we left Collingwood and the 401 closed at Tilbury for a multi-car prang. Stopped at the Outlet mall in Fremont, but the Calphalon store had gone out of business. Today we start in Fort Wayne and head to Nashville. I have been scouring the internet for music in Nashville hoping to go to the Bluebird Cafe but it is American Thanksgiving. Looks like Tootsie's might be open though.

Tried to book a room in Baton Rouge, but the prices are sky-high - $300US plus a deposit of another $300 if you live within 50 miles of Baton Rouge. This being a deposit for damages. There must be a local college football game. So - - we will shorten the drive on Friday and stay in Jackson Mississippi. By Saturday morning the storm in the mid-west should have subsided and we can shoot across the lower part of Texas, to California.