out of the blue

In the last few months I have experienced summer back on the farm with gratitude --  complete in its sweltering glory, its lushness, its fruitfulness, its labor. And its unpredictability. Almost more than anything, I have been consumed with a fight and I want as many people as possible to know about it---
Last week I wrote a letter to the editor of the Metro Pulse, Knoxville's popular weekly. It was published. It outlines the situation, so I decided to post it here too.

Save New Market

Metro Pulse

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Every thing must be made new again. First, the tearing apart.
Storms come and the Wind has its way with things. The rain falls and falls, the clouds disperse only to gather again. Ditches we hardly knew were there are full and busy, transporting discarded things. The rivers are swollen and flowing in frenzies, moving Life swiftly onward. Every growing thing is green and dripping wet, the ground is soaked and sinks when walked upon.
Am I finally ready for surrender? I look up to the sky and submit -- maybe things are working in a fashion beyond my knowing? A secret plan I have yet to discover? Maybe things are happening on a schedule out of sync with my own?

Yes of course, as always!

On the Holston River there exists a series of horseshoe bends, and one of those is home to the farm I grew up on. My father says it is called "Sweet Gum Bend" back here, although I don't know if anyone else calls it that. There are lots of Sweet Gum trees along the roads and in the woods, it is true. And also Black Gums. I am back here, living on the farm. Digging in and going deeper into the life I was longing for much of the time when I lived away.
Strange how many things have changed, in me and in the world... even from the last Summer Solstice to the last Winter Solstice -- these endings, beginnings, and endings again. On the farm one has the opportunity to see a little closer the cycle of birth and death, how ever present it is, how unchangeable, unstoppable and natural it is. I am learning.

The wonderful online music store/community called "Miles of Music" has picked up Luminous with a nice little review. Here is the link:

Luminous at MilesOfMusic.com

Recently Joe McMahan and I performed some songs on the streets of downtown Nashville on our old Gibson acoustics....

You can watch it here: Jennifer Niceley on CMT

Nashville's daily The Tennessean has a new feature on their website called "Tune in at Home" --

Last week music writers Dave and Nicole came by my humble abode in East Nashville and got me to play a couple songs -- You can watch the video by going to www.tuneinmusiccity.com -- then clicking on my picture...

I just posted a new song called "If it is what it is (It's Love)" -- by David Egan. He was gracious enough to ask me to sing with him on this captivating song. We recorded it at La Louisianne (I hope I didn't just misspell that ) in Lafayette -- a studio with a lot of incredible history and beautiful, working vintage gear (which we used!). David's new record, You Don't Know Your Mind, is coming out very soon. He is playing Jazz Fest this weekend and Joe McMahan and I are going to join him onstage. Egan is an amazing songwriter. He writes classics. I just couldn't wait to share this one.

I stand for reconnection. Wherever there has been loss, there is still the possibility of regain. There is still this magical, bountiful earth --- on, and with which we inhabit --- and we can sow the right seeds now, reaping the harvest in our own lifetimes -- as well as knowing they will benefit the generations after us.

I was given the gift of growing up on a good piece of land by the rich and relatively healthy Holston River, in the shadow of the Great Smoky Mountains. Fields for growing crops and pastures for livestock and acres and acres of woodlands with its own population of wildness. The ever enduring, ever mysterious, ever inspiring, cycle of life and death was more transparent then, when I was growing up there -- and sunk deeply and directly into my consciousness. I removed myself from the farm -- and have missed it, been drawn back to it, fled it, sought it, re-visted it, dreamed of it incessantly, and needed it ever since. But "it" also encompasses the whole drama of the cycle of life and death, getting to watch it unfold everyday. Paying close attention to the details, and always being enriched in the process.

I believe that self-sustainabitlity and localizing our food supply is essential to our future welfare as a people, a country, as a society and culture, as a world population. I don't want to live in a world where I get all my nutrients not from the land I live on or nearby, but from impoverished countries on separate continents -- the offspring of a monstrous chain -- that if I could see and scrutinize in its entirety I would find scandalous and destructive to all living things. I would find it motivated by greed alone.

And I am not alone in feeling this way.

Localizing is the short-cut to transparency. And the end of the far-removed, the utterly non-connected and ungracious way we often eat -- and in many ways conduct our lives.

I stand for reconnection.

And I am ready to play my part.

From www.lucidculture.com, posted on Feb 7, 2008:

"Move over, Eleni Mandell. Make some room, Rachelle Garniez. Neko Case, scooch. Meet the next great noir chanteuse: Jennifer Niceley. Tonight the Tennessee singer/guitarist held the crowd at the Rockwood spellbound throughout her all-too-brief, barely half-hour set. Singing with a smoky, slightly breathy contralto rich with jazz and soul inflections and playing a hollowbody Danelectro Les Paul copy with just a hint of distortion, she proved as adept at sunny soul music as the eerily glimmering, reverb-drenched, slowly swaying minor-key ballads that she clearly loves so well. Her best song of the evening, possibly titled Shadows & Mountains, describes a woman taking a long, David Lynch-esque drive through the night. At the end of the song, after she's finally gotten past them, she ends up at the edge of a lake praying in the dark that everything will be all right. Niceley followed this with two more slow, torchy minor-key numbers from her new album, Luminous, that were equally chilling.

Growing up in the country in East Tennessee, she explained, her father was a huge Jimmy Rodgers fan, so she played a slightly jazzed-up version of one of his songs. She also treated the audience to her own rearrangement of the Bobby Bland/Little Milton blues classic Blind Man (which she retitled Blind Woman), a showcase not only for her vocals but also for her lead guitarist, who played the most riveting solo we've heard all year long. Using a slide, he swooped around, pushing the beat as if to mimic the sound of backward masking (sounds like somebody in this band's been listening to Jim Campilongo!). At the end, he abandoned the effect and flew up the fretboard to the highest registers, throwing in a couple of lickety-split, Ravi Shankar-ish licks to seal the deal. The crowd was awestruck. It's early in the year, but it wouldn't be a surprise if this turned out to be the best show of 2008. If the aforementioned Mme. Case, Garniez or Mandell are your cup of tea, or if you love Snorah Jones' voice but wish the girl would grow up and learn how to write a damn song, don't miss the chance to get to know Jennifer Niceley. "