One Last Try, For the Love Of The Music

by Kevin Burton    It is very much like me that I saved a fortune cookie message which reads: “share your musical talents generously, for they are a gift to others.”    Saved it even though I know sayings in cookies from my favorite Chinese restaurant can be amusing, but they are not messages.    …

Steely Dan To Songwriters’ Hall of Fame

by Kevin Burton    Steely Dan and four others will be inducted into the Songwriters’ Hall of Fame this year, according to multiple reports.    R.E.M. and three non-performing songwriters, Hillary Lindsey, Timothy Moseley (Timberland) and Dean Pritchard will also be inducted.    I don’t know if the Songwriters’ hall has toxic politics the way …

Coast To Coast: California Dreamin’

by Kevin Burton    Texas has its outsized pretentions, but California for most of a century was considered the American promised land. This was reflected throughout popular culture, including in music.    So there is no shortage of songs we could use to represent the Golden State in our summer rock and roll road trip …

Four Birthday Wishes And One Deferred

by Kevin Burton    My generous wife made an offer some weeks ago. Really it was a demand.     Tired of my elusiveness about what I wanted for my birthday, she requested in the strongest of terms, a list of five things that I wanted (see Five Bows On Five Boxes, Holy Smokes!, July 17).  …

Letters From Hamburg: In The Studio

by Kevin Burton     I had been looking forward to and working toward last Friday, my consultation day in a local music studio.    So how did it go?    A reasonable question, but one without a firm answer at this point.  I was pleased with it. It was fun. The time absolutely flew past. …

Letters From Hamburg: Sophomore Studies

by Kevin Burton    Well here it is, go day for me, a musical milestone of sorts, at least I hope.     This is the day I get into a local studio for an assessment of sixteen of my original songs. Publishing this post is one of the final things I will do before heading …

Letters From Hamburg: Road Trip Feeling

by Kevin Burton    Some of my best memories are of road trips as a child, headed to track and wrestling meets. This was at the Ohio State School for the Blind.    Those trips were a lifting of the ordinary into something special. My friends were there. We were sewing life fragments into a …