Christopher Miller

Born under the sign of Pisces and raised in the heart of the Heartland,

listening along with the ears of corn to the sounds pouring out of the radios,

record players, and television sets tuned in and turned on all across the Great Midwest.

Big band sounds in the velvet fog,

Hee Haw hoedowns,

pop groups,

cool combos

and psychedelic serenades left smoldering on suspended chords dissipating in the fading sustain as the haze slowly lifted off the 1960's.  

Stranded out in the steel guitar sticks

where bits of gypsy jazz popped out of the hot licks

of those great players who had the whole thing down cold;

where lone voices called out from the wilderness while they strummed well worn guitars

or made soft chords on old upright pianos.

Songs that seemed like Scripture, like Shakespeare, like Dante.

On the other side of that coin were the songs that made you laugh right out loud: the raucous and the ribald;

the Friday night paycheck steam rolling its way through the Saturday night fish fries,

rural roadhouses, corner bars, and juke joints. 

This is the musical terrain being covered;

the well worn trail of tradition that takes you down the sunny side of the street on one day,

down the lost highway on another,

hoping you finally make your way past Vanity Fair

and on up to the heights of the windy mountain

where you hope to receive your own set of tablets carved in stone.  

In the end, you just hope a few people will read the writing on the wall

before somebody comes along and decides to paint over it.