Steve Edmunds’ collection of self-penned songs, Lonesome on the Ground, makes me wish I was in California… warm and easy feeling, making music with good friends. (I think people who say unkind things about California are mad, because they’re cold.) Steve’s album was produced by Laurie Lewis, who also accompanies him, along with a can’t be beat bunch, including Nina Gerber on guitar, Barbara Higbie at the piano, Tom Rozum on mandolin, and a cast of sterling supporting players. Steve explores love, loss, alienation, and longing, singing with style and grace. (My particular favorite is “Rockabye Moon,” a kind of lullaby that reminds us of how we need fathers to sing to their children.) Sit and listen, and wherever you are, you’ll be transported to a warm summer night, sitting around a campfire, drinking good wine with friends, and rocking gently to a Western tune.
–Rosalie Sorrels
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December 1st: It’s here! Copies of Lonesome on the Ground are now available by mail. The CDs are $15 each; please include $2.00 shipping and handling for the first CD, and $.50 for each additional CD. Checks should be made payable to Steve Edmunds and sent to 1331 Walnut Street, Berkeley, CA 94709 I think it’s reasonable to assume that you would not expect to see an announcement of a CD release from a winery website. But, consider; the ancient Greek myths tell us that wine, music poetry and art all sprang from the same spot on the earth struck by the hoof of Pegasus, the fabled winged horse, at a place called Hippocrene. (And we should note that the most prestigious and notorious horse race in the world, the Kentucky Derby, was won this year by a horse named, of all things, Pegasus.) So, might a winemaker under the influence of these ancient energetic occurrences, not be as likely to be a poet/musician as a vintner, perhaps BOTH? In fact, Steve Edmunds wrote songs for years before he ever tasted wine, and he insists that the music is better with wine than without. And who are you to argue? So what we have here is an album, Lonesome on the Ground, of 11 songs that Steve wrote, most of them some 20 years ago. As a 50th birthday present to himself he wanted to make a recording to pass on to family and friends, and this March, it came to pass. The album was produced by Steve’s good friend, Laurie Lewis, whose name you may recognize as one of the great bluegrass musicians of our time (or any time). Laurie plays (and sings) on the album, as do a number of great local musicians including Tom Rozum, Todd Phillips, Nina Gerber, Barbara Higbie, Sally Van Meter and Chad Manning. We’re willing to bet you may find yourself thinking: This music is as good as the wine!
All songs written by Steve Edmunds © 2000. To listen to the tracks “Oh, Louise,” “Don’t Need Champagne,“, or “All this Rain,” you need the RealPlayer G2. Click on the logo below to install it; the free Basic player works fine.
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