Water has always had a special place in my life. The strength and weight of a flowing river or ocean waves, the embrace and baptismal feel of a still pond, rain as a cleansing force or as a element of change on a landscape. Water plays a central role in my being. One does not have to look very hard at my lyrics to find the outsized importance I find in this life-giving and simultaneously life-altering force of nature.
I spent several of my formative years living in a A-frame house on a bluff overlooking the Caddo River in rural Arkansas. The often walked path to the river, the remembered sounds of the rapids and the sense of oneness I received from the natural world back then often overwhelms my dreams and works its way, sometimes not at all subtly, into my music. As an agent of change, as a metaphor for love, or loss, or spirituality or belonging, tears of joy and of despair, water in all its forms is an ever morphing entity with which all things are inextricably linked.
Hurricanes and foods, brief gentle showers during an otherwise sunny day, crashing waves or cooling comfort, nourishment for both animal and plant, water is powerful yet soothing.
Intimate house concert settings allow me the opportunity to tell people about my place in this world and allows both artist and audience to relate to each other in such a wonderful way. Because there are no distracting conversations, no screens that incessantly scream for attention, we can just “be” in this moment and share in the universal flow that binds and supports us, moves and carries us.
Please join me at the Acoustical Cafe to share in the rain and the waves and the tears and the current that washes over and through us all.
-- Shelley King