Music Rising: Benefitting us all...

The Music Rising foundation is worth a look, and is worth supporting. Nearly all the music most of us enjoy has either influences from, or roots in, the kinds of music that are still practiced along the gulf coast of the United States.

Hurricane Katrina destroyed homes, lives, environments, flora and fauna. It also wiped out instruments, gear, and other parts of the music of the Gulf Coast region. Most of the folks that are still practicing/gigging musicians in this area were not fortunate enough to be financially capable of recovering from their losses. Priceless instruments, gear, and musical items were destroyed or nearly ruined.

The Music Rising foundation, honorably fostered by The Edge (of U2), is making a difference in replacing the lost music of the Gulf Coast. The foundation's efforts are extraordinary, and are worth supporting. Each of us can help a little at a time with this effort.

Please visit the musicrising.org website. I visited the site, donated, and I feel great about it. I have a huge debt of gratitude to the musicians of our culture.

If you'd like to help, you could purchase one of the beautiful and stunning custom Gibson Les Paul guitars (wow! what an instrument!) that help support the foundation, or you can give a cash gift donation, or buy a wonderful, soft t-shirt.

Thanks for listening. Please help.

Music that people enjoy is its own justification and purpose. Not all music must be a commercial or critical success. If the music makes folks feel in some way, and they like to listen to it again, then the music has huge value.

Sometimes, music is enough for its own sake. Whether it be for the artists' sakes, or for the listener's sake, or both.

I realize that this blog is my place to ramble on about music, independent music, and musical stuff…

However, since it is also a place for my voice, I feel the need to ramble on a bit about an important life event of May, 2006.

In the simplest terms, in the late morning of May 1, 2006 in the intersection of Lynn Road and North Hills Drive in Raleigh, NC, a man ran a red light (by at least 4 seconds) and t-boned my wife’s new New Beetle Volkswagen. The accident badly injured my wife’s whole left side, including a huge knot in her left elbow. The man responsible then proceeded to lie about the accident and shifted the blame to my wife. Not surprisingly (in today’s society), NONE of the half-dozen or so people present at the time of the accident stopped and offered to help or to speak to the police. Everyone must have had somewhere very important to go (much more important than a woman trapped in her car from an accident from a bad guy who also tried to intimidate his victim, and who has consistently lied through his teeth about the incident). I’d like to say something sarcastic at this point about all those “helpful” witnesses, but I will refrain.

The only witness that could be identified by her license tag, who also said to my wife “You had the green light!” immediately after the wreck, took five weeks to respond to the police, and has changed her story completely. She now says she didn’t witness the accident, and now has a different version of what she said to my wife (although she did say that she talked to my wife while my wife was still trapped in her bug).

The bottom line is: a man who ran a light that had long gone red, a man that has no integrity, who nearly caused my wife’s death, who has a serious police record, who tried to intimidate my wife, who has lied about the accident in every way, who has cost us many thousands of dollars, who has caused my wife pain from which she is still recovering, who has cost us weeks of sorrow, suffering, who has cost us weeks of time in efforts to exonerate my wife, who has cost us a brand new bug (my wife’s favorite-ever car), who has cost us many thousands of dollars – is the one that the insurance companies are believing.

And now that our insurance company is having to foot the bill, there is no compensation for the suffering my wife has endured. Our $22K brand new Beetle will be worth $4K-$5K after it is repaired (if not less) – and we will receive no compensation for the massive loss of value in the car, and we will then own a vehicle that doesn’t have the safety and integrity it did before the accident. (Would you put your loved one in a car that was hit at 35+ MPH directly in one side, caving in every safety structure in the left side and causing the entire floor of the car’s unibody to completely buckle and warp?)

The moral of the story? Well, I guess it is “Bad things sometimes happen to good people.” By extrapolation, it means that someone can commit a traffic violation, hurt someone, cost them dearly (in many different ways) – and all they have to do is lie about their mistake – and the offender be cleared and will inflict further harm on their victim.

Thanks for letting me ramble. Sorry about the sour grapes. Back to music…

The latest Jimmy Bear Pearson Acoustic Guitar Instrumental album is out!!!

Among Seasoned Woods at CDBaby

Please have a look. This album is pretty wonderful!

There are many causes to help humanity. One.org, stopglobalwarming.org, and many more.

I've been a signer at one.org for quite a while, and I've just signed up for stopglobalwarming.org. Please sign up, read some of the simple, everyday things you can do to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Even the little things make a big difference.