INTRODUCTION
Nearly all of the poems included in Riversong are new.
They are expressions of personal love, transcendental
realization, and my deep involvement with nature and music.
STREAM. . .RIVER. . .FLOW, that starts off the FOREVER
SONGS Section, for example, is a journey from youth's first
realization of the power of music, when as a nine-year-old
boy, lying in bed, I held a plastic radio up to my ear, listening
to "The Grand Ol' Opry," and heard for the first time the
magical guitar of Chet Atkins. I had never heard anything
remotely like what he was doing with his music. I was transported
into the first heaven I had ever known.
That musical experience awakened me to the realization
that life itself is a stream, a river, an eternal flowng that
forever surrounds us and infuses us and carries us through
waves of music, which only sometimes do we become aware
of. Life is a RIVERSONG filled with light, fire, and beauty.
Life itself is that RIVERSONG.
As my life streamed on, other adventures appeared
to me in that music flow - such as running away from
home in Big Spring west Texas as a 14-year-old boy, hitchhiking
to Memphis, stealing a row boat, and sailing down
the Mississippi River.
That journey was the first of many adventures that
river-streamed through my life, including learning how to
drink beer as a college student, how to make love, and, later
on, how to play guitar, which hearkened me back to the music
of Chet Atkins. STREAM. . .RIVER. . .FLOW also includes
a mini-biography of my journey as the lead guitarist with a
"wild-haired singer" (which some readers will recognize as
Tim Buckley.)
