Music from Brian Dyer Stewart

Dear family, friends, and fellow travelers,

    The tune this cycle is Snow at Christmas, a piano improv from a couple years ago, when there wasn't snow at the holidays.  Just a little tune but I hope it captures the spirit.

    My best to each,

    Brian

I'm sending you a monthly offering from original music I've been writing over many years. I've been so bold as to add your email to my newsletter list.  You can unsubscribe at any time (link at the bottom of the email).

Dear family, friends, and fellow travelers,

    The song this cycle is Love Will Guide Us Home, which I wrote just before Thanksgiving.  It's a bit of a mellow song for the topic - love isn't that quiet an energy, really, but something that actuates us, revolutionizes us, sets on fire and opens us wide to the beauty and the pain!  So here's wishing that lover for each of us as we head toward winter and the new year.  I'm so grateful for each of you and the chance to share music. 

Dear family, friends, and fellow travelers,

    The song this cycle is Metaphysical Rap, which I wrote in the early '90s, recorded here by Joyful Noise - Bruce Cassaday on trumpet, Leonore Hildebrandt on percussion, Joel Mann on bass, me on the guitar and all of us on vocals.

    My best to each,

    Brian

Dear family, friends, and fellow travelers,

Dear family, friends, and fellow travelers,

    The song this cycle is Stand Together, drawn from way back in the archives.  Pammy and I were in Bangor today to visit our dear friends Dennis and Kathehrine who were celebrating their recent 50th wedding anniversary. We've been friends for nearly forty years, through work, kids, community and peace efforts. 

Dear family, friends, and fellow travelers,

Dear family, friends, and fellow travelers,

    The song this cycle is Song Writer's Lament (So Much for that Bottle of Jameson), written a few years ago at the Catie at the Cove songwriters' retreat.  I'm fond of the line "his true mother tongue, the ladder whose rungs let him climb up to the stars" which somehow rings true for me, even these seventy-three years along...

    My best to each,

    Brian

Dear family, friends, and fellow travelers,

   The song this cycle is Lilacs, written in 1997 after the sudden death of our friend Geertje on May 30th.  The lilacs were just in bloom, as they are now, spring finally in full swing, the air gentle and scented with the last of the apple blossoms, the first lilacs and that sure vigor and sweet urgency of the season, the songs of phoebe and warbler, vireo and hermit thrush...It's also a year to the day since our land mate and spirit brother, Tony, died just shy of 94. 

Dear family, friends, and fellow travelers,

Dear family, friends, and fellow travelers,

   As promised, here is last week's instrumental with its lyrics, recorded just now in Clinton, NY - By River's Shore.  Pammy and I live on seventeen acres along the Harrington River.  The river is tidal where we are, with tidal swings of nearly fifteen feet, depending on the moon.  We look across what we can the Marsh hill, old pasture that goes down to salt marsh flats that stretch out to the main river, filling on the big tides of the month and emptying to the community of plants that love the rise and fall of the rich salty waters.  Pammy and I often walk down to the marsh after dinner when the sun is low and everything is lit in golds and reds and sky and marsh and river seem to stretch forever.  Such wonders...