MySpace
myspace music my music | music videos | featured playlists | top artists | shows | classifieds | forums 


Nina Jo Smith



Last Updated: 6/24/2009

Send Message
Instant Message
Email to a Friend
Subscribe

Status: Single
City: SAN FRANCISCO
State: CA
Country: US
Signup Date: 3/16/2005

My Subscriptions

Blog Archive
[Older      Newer]
 /  / 
Thursday, June 25, 2009 

Current mood:concerned
Category: Music
Thursday 6/25/09
San Bernardino Mountains

So my friend Stephen Foster called yesterday from a hospital somewhere in Florida. He’s been having terrible pain in his neck and shoulder recently. He’s having heart surgery this morning.

Foster is the guy who picked me up from the airport in Nashville, first time I flew out to meet the wild tribe of musicians comprising the Mighty Field of Vision. Foster wrote the song of that same name, our theme song. It was Lee Mallory who first told me I should check out the South, because the people were so great. Lee loved the South ever after touring there in the first traveling troupe of HAIR! Anywhoo, he didn’t steer me wrong.

Stephen delivered me to a great gathering at Dick Cooper’s in Florence, Alabama where I met lots of great musicians from the wellspring of American music, Muscle Shoals. I ain’t gonna drop names, but suffice it to say any song you ever liked on the radio probably had somebody at that party playing on it. Late in the evening somebody took me aside, asked me how I was doing and said, “Girl, you’ve been to Muscle Shoals; you’ll never be the same.” Ayup. Missed my flight back and everything.

Stephen Foster is a relative of Stephen C. Foster and I’m writing about him today because I’m hoping Hard Times Come Again No More for him. Like most independent musicians and most citizens of this place, he’s uninsured. The main way he has to make money is gigging (can’t do from hospital) and selling songs. So go buy his music, already: http://www.howler.biz ; a review of Foster’s Howler Band album and a good bio at: http://www.acousticmusic.com/fame/p04022.htm

Foster and his wife Trish showed me great hospitality (including my first chicken & dumplings) at their mountaintop perch in Gurley, AL. I fell in love with The Girls, their big crazy dogs. Stephen ended up mastering my first CD, Guitar Songs, and he designed the package with the text and graphics I sent him. I enjoyed working with him so much that we later did an epic sort of psychedelic version of Dreamcatcher with his Howler Band. You can hear that one here on myspace.

Okay, so Stephen Foster is the kind of friend who calls at random just to say Hey. He’s also a kickass keyboard player, terrific songwriter & producer. I love the way he arranges sounds in space – not everyone has an ear for that. Plus he’s friggin’ hilarious. (Like my own brother was.) So do yourself a favor, go purchase Mama Goin’ Dancin’ and other great tunes from http://www.howler.biz right now, today. And help ensure Stephen Foster's speedy recovery to boot.

object width="425" height="344"> ..

(PS sorry text came out underlined, no clue why the formatting got weird.)
Friday, June 19, 2009 

Current mood:  adventurous
Category: Music
Up here on the mountain, there’s a light dusting of yellow tree pollen (oak?) covering everything, inclulding the chair I’m sitting on. It adds a patina to the orange bee poop scattered over my car, a souvenir of Ojai’s high orange blossom season.

Yesterday I had a goal of walking 5000 steps and according to my pedometer, I’d barely reached that by bedtime, thanks to an extra trip up & down the stairs. After my morning rounds, walking by the lake, hitting the hardware store and buying fresh local eggs (at the market, not the hardware store, silly) I’d easily exceeded that by 9:23 AM. Ankle rehab likes the mountains.

It’s good guitar-pickin’ country too. Just spent some time out on the deck playing the 6 in drop F#. The birds seem to like it & it fits the raincloud mood. I’m working up a good flatpicking guitar park for Snake In The Rafters on the old Martin 12. The namesake snake met an untimely end to which I was an accomplice, but it achieves immortality in this song. Ain’t that the way.




Currently reading:
Travels with Charley: In Search of America
By John Steinbeck
Wednesday, June 17, 2009 

Current mood:  adventurous
Category: Music
I'm on the road. Okay, at the moment I'm really on the couch. But I digress. Flew to Alabama last month (the sheriff who stopped me as I was driving Janice's car on a dark country road observed my arms must be tired - no ticket). His name was Sheriff High and he thought I was. But I wasn't.

Where was I.... anyway, Janice drove me all over Chambers County & environs, I saw much green and many red dirt roads. Visited some of Janice's friends and met a snake in the rafters of David's and Valerie's porch and a river on Chuck's roof. And yes, there is a new song, Snake On The Rafters, of course. The photo below is Janice & her boys. Everybody thought we were sisters (well, we're sisters from another city.)

Now I'm in the San Bernardino Mountains. The sun's going down & the coyotes are starting up. Mmmmmellow. Rainclouds passed and the aftertaste of jalapeno pistacios from Cornejo's in Fillmore lingers. Mockingbirds are singing the sun down.



Currently listening:
Get Myself Together
By Danny Barnes
Release date: 2005-08-02
Friday, May 08, 2009 

Category: Music
Awhile back I rented the Beach Boys Lost Concert DVD. Today I'm watching the Pet Sounds DVD. They bring back some odd memories. Back in 1970 ('71?) I was playing out a bit in The Valley (yeah, that one) and a guy who wanted to manage me dragged me around to meet some people he hoped might want to produce me.

The most memorable was Brian Wilson at his home in Bel Aire. Sometimes I don't trust my memory of the event because it seems so improbable, but the extra features in the Lost Concert DVD confirmed that wrought iron candelabra over the piano and his wife looked exactly as I remembered her. She was a very gracious hostess.

Now you'll wonder what Brian was like. My impression of him was that his mood seemed surprisingly morose, in stark contrast to his sunny music. He listened politely to my songs & I'll never know if he had any interest in furthering my career because my mom flat out refused to entertain the idea of sending her 17 year-old daughter off to Hollywood.

I took a long detour, but music won out. I'm back at it. And it's good to see Brian Wilson, master melodist, able to emerge from his long dark years.

Seems like good stuff comes back around if you live long enough to see the day.
Currently watching:
Pet Sounds Live in London
Release date: 2003-10-28
Wednesday, April 22, 2009 

Current mood:  inspired
Category: Music
Happy Earth Day. Take a listen to Lee Mallory's song The Blue Marble - inspired by the view of our fragile planet from space. Gary Usher shares credit for this lovely song.

Currently listening:
The Blue Marble
By Sagittarius
Release date: 2008-10-28
Thursday, April 02, 2009 


http://theater2.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/theater/rev...

This emotionally rich revival delivers what Broadway otherwise hasn’t felt this season: the intense, unadulterated joy and anguish of that bipolar state called youth.

Lee was in the first touring production of HAIR! He loved that gig so much!

Saturday, March 28, 2009 

Current mood:acoustic
Category: Friends
Still savoring last night's celebratory pub crawl to some of Mission Street's fine establishments. Yes, the three fair lasses serenading that Irish bar at closing time with voices, guitar and harp, that was us.

Currently listening:
Almost Alone
By Chet Atkins
Release date: 2008-02-01
Wednesday, February 18, 2009 
Thursday, January 22, 2009 
Sunday, January 18, 2009