What a summer! I don’t know where to begin. What I anticipated being a peaceful, forest retreat full of writing and dreaming turned into a fully-fledged tour and practice schedule. I started my summer with a bang in May, traveling to Orlando, Florida after being invited to showcase at the Florida Music Festival. After a few days of crazed city nightlife and endless amounts of great music from countless indie artists, I flew back to Nashville in a blur to collect my belongings and head home to Michigan.

            Straight away I started working with some of the GREATEST musicians in town to put together my band. I had Paul Smith on lead guitar. Paul had been my guitar teacher and friend for about 5 years before I moved to Nashville and continues to teach me something new every time we work together. Paul recently recorded a country record in Nashville with the legendary Jack Clement, who has worked with the likes of Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley. Check him out! PAUL SMITH.

            I had the privilege of working with Mark Lucier for the second summer in a row. He is an amazing drummer and a good friend of mine. I was also able to work with Scott Veenstra (bass) for the first time and it was truly a pleasure. My younger sisters, Myiah and Wynter sang some crazy BGVs.  For all of our 13 some years living together it’s wonder that this was the first time we sang together professionally. Together, we sounded invincible. We were very close to achieving the sound I hear for myself in my head. I had so much fun working and playing with these PEOPLE!

            I played more shows than I can remember around my area, some solo and some with the band. I did one show where I sang back up for Paul while he was promoting his album.

            I visited the Windy City for American Idol Auditions; you can look back a couple blogs for a complete account of that experience. In late July I took a week out of my busy schedule to visit California for the first time with my family, San Diego and Los Angeles. Being a forest child, San Diego was a pleasure and LA, especially Hollywood, was a mildly frightening shock. The fast pace, hardcore city lifestyle is definitely not for me. But all in all it was a fun family retreat. We got to swim in the OCEAN! The last time I was at the ocean I was too young to remember, so this was the highlight of the trip. The beaches we packed with shiny people in swimming suits and the water was surprisingly, and rather unpleasantly EXTREMELY salty. I had no idea it would be so darn salty. Yick. Which made me think maybe it was the large congregation of people swimming than made it so salty….food for the thought. Haha sorry. 

            Anyways! I also had the great pleasure and honor of doing some co-writing and recording with my friend PJ Olsson. PJ is from my hometown but has spent some major time over in California for his music career. He is another artist to check out guys! PJ OLSSON. He has some great solo albums and is also the singer for Alan Parsons Project.

Ok back on track. This was my first co-writing experience. I never realized until I was right in the middle of it, how daunting a task it is. My songwriting is the most personal thing I have. It holds and releases all of my deepest, darkest or brightest emotions. Imagine having to share those thoughts with someone in their most raw, pure form in a professional situation. For me, it is very difficult. But with some coaxing and inspiration from PJ, we were able to create something totally AWESOME! A song called “Broken”. Which is not up on myspace yet just to tease you all haha. However, the other song we recorded is. This is one I wrote alone last spring, it’s called “Spellbound Man” and it was my first successful piano piece. This one is available for your listening pleasure on my home page. Please check it out and give me some feedback! I’d love to hear what you think.

            Jeeze Louise this is getting lengthy. Okay, long story short. I packed all of my belongings into two cars and my family drove me down to Nashville and helped me get settled into my new apartment. Now I’m here. Alone. Slightly lonely. But once I get settled into the music things will get better. They always do.

            Thanks so much for hanging in there with me through this ridiculously long blog and all the years of music! I’ll keep you up dated on anything and everything exciting.

            Have a beautiful day J

.. ..

~Hannah

PS: Is this Jedi emoticon like an Anakin Skywalker Jedi or some new emotion I've yet to add to my vocabulary? I had an Anakin Jedi in mind.