Truly Maudlin Music
"You're my Rock and my Redeemer; You're the reason that I sing;
I desire to be a blessing in Your eyes..."
excerpt from Terry Butler's Psalm 19
I occasionally mention this gorgeous guitar I got to play, built by luthiers Tom Ribbecke and Linda Manzer, called appropriately enough "Duet" - now you can see it. A truly lovely instrument, wanted a better guitarist than I am (but may have been purchased by a non-player collector...*whimper*
Sometimes I have the joy of playing music with old friends - not as often as any of us would like - but life is complex and pulls in many directions, so I'm just delighted to hang out and play guitars with Ronn Moss and Dave Storrs and Arturo Garcia, singing with fabulous Nancy O'Rourke (Arturo's wife), any time we can manage it-- really good fun!
I am also honored to do the occasional 'filk concert' at science fiction conventions like Loscon, Condor, and Conjecture - these give me the opportunity to sing really important songs like I Gotta Kill My Clone.
The first album project, AT LONG LAST LYNN, is still, for the moment, only available on cassette (Dolby B, although the j-card doesn't indicate it); for delivery in the USA send $10.00 and your address to:
It contains the following original material:
an uptempo Christmas song. The
African Children's Choir used my tracks and put their own charming
vocals on top of it on several of their albums circa 1990.
all that sensitive singer-songwriter stuff.
a little rock'n'roll with a quick trip to New York thrown in for good measure; joined on background vocals by Marcia Coy.
If You Can't Live Without Me Then Why Aren't You Dead?
that
timeless question... I thought it was going to be a country song when I
conceived it but turns out I was wrong (boy, was I wrong!). I just learned
that Dr. Joseph Bentz of Azusa Pacific University used this in teaching a
Shakespeare course... go figure!
no, not the 60s classic; this one was inspired by
Lynyrd Skynyrd's "What's Your Name?" - I thought, "you don't
want to know my name--" and it went on from there. Background vocals by
Howard McCrary, Debbie McClendon, and Priscilla Navarro.
I've been told it's too autobiographical
for comfort; I've also been told it's "perfect" - hard to know;
eye of the beholder, ear of the listener.
free love and the consequences thereof...
my car broke down and I spent the night in a cheap
motel, next door to the ladies that were living this one; Dr. Diana Glyer,
also at APU, uses it as an example of persona, assuring her students
that I have never been a whore. I appreciate the confidence of my friends!
Bottleneck guitar by John Goux.
the Gospel in a nutshell, with saxophones and a
genuine reverse cymbal crash (by Dave Crigger). Wow. Marcia Coy and moi again
on bg vocals.
bass flutes (which
look like plumbing, really) and swimmy snyths and
layered Lynn vocals, oh my.
"A f*ing sensitive singer!" or so I was told by a VP of A&R at
a major label (such a compliment! hmmmm... - he didn't sign me but I suspect
he just didn't know what to do with a large blonde - so few do - *sigh*).
It's a long story, the recording of this project, which is why we called the
collection At Long Last Lynn. Suffice it to say that this particular collection of ten songs
was too Christian for the mainstream record biz and too worldly for the
Christians - something about a rock and a hard place rings in my
ears...
In the meantime I've done a little recording with the worship team at St.
Judes and some recording in the preparation of House of Bread.
We did in fact record the premier performances and I've just remixed them with Jeremy Oldson (blogged
about it); I'm not sure that I want to release it beyond the immediate circle of
church and participants - it's more a record of the performance than a
representation of the project, if you know what I mean. But I expect we will
record the project "properly" sometime within the next six months or
so - and the other singers have
also requested that I record the project myself, which I may do.
I've promised to record Emotional Junkie for a psychiatrist friend of mine (!!) and
there's a collection of songs which beg to be assembled in the light of the blitzkrieg
divorce... We'll see.
Other music that's rich and rewarding to me at this point in my life (and,
boy, it took a long time to get here!) is worship music and I'm blessed to
participate in a couple of worship teams on a regular basis, primarily at St.
Jude's. It's very different from performance... I still run into worship songs that
I find musically boring or lyrically banal (c'mon, give me some of that fine
old Charles Wesley) but actually it was the demons attached to me that
hated worship music... But that's a really long story and I'm not it
telling here and now--
We did record a whole bunch of worship music (including one of
mine, Shepherd Me, loosely based on the well-beloved 23rd Psalm) for a
friend's wedding in Spring of 2005. We recorded 14 songs live to CD in a single
evening, so I've got issues with production and "perfection" (--sigh--)
but it ministers to lots of people, so perhaps our humble little team, small but
genuinely worshipful, will do some more work which I'll feel more comfortable
knowing it's out there, being listened to ~ I'm working on the concept of
"good enough."
God bless you, thanks for visiting, come back any time - there are a couple of MP3s up at Moonbird Music;
check out Can You Imagine That Night? or Walk On By and click on "Listen."
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To contact Lynn Maudlin by e-mail: lynn AT lynnmaudlin DOT com
last updated March 25, 2008