Raven River
  1. Rivers Will Rise
  2. The Copper River
  3. Morning Merry Sunshine
  4. The Wind On The Reek
  5. Juju Gris-Gris Dingledust
  6. Prelude
  7. Johnny Has Gone For A Soldier
  8. The More Things Change
  9. Sowin' On The Mountain
  10. Reason
  11. My Big Toe
  12. Drowsy America
  13. Tickles All The Way Down
  14. Johnny Redux
  15. Push Of The World
  16. All Be Gone Tomorrow
  17. Farewell To Heartbreak
  18. Ivy And Luna
  19. Farewell To Farewell listen ~ lyrics ~ purchase


"The world is the poet and I am the clerk.” —Woody Guthrie

Greetings friend. I originally had planned to title this collection of songs Raven in a Big Wind from a song by that name:
I'm a raven in a big wind
I'm not that clever
Got a thing for purple feathers
where angels fear to tread
But true to its trickster nature the Raven song has been evading my attempts to record it and will have to wait for the next album. Meantime we have Raven River. There is a lot of water in this music.

Also a lot of oil. These songs are oil spill songs, created in the cauldron of years following the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in my home of Prince William Sound, Alaska. The spill happened on Good Friday, the traditional day of sacrifice. By Easter countless animals were dying in the darkness—whale, otter, eagle, loon. Our faces turned ashen and we were no longer fishermen or scientists, just children frightened out of our minds. In our grief we prayed that after this sacrifice would come resurrection.
"The tiding old sea is still taking and giving and shaping
In spring the gentians and violets break from the stone
And the world and his mother go jigging and reeling forever
In answer to what troubles the blood and the bone."
—Michael Coady
In our efforts to restore our home we have often looked to the Hippocratic oath, which guides many healers. It begins, “first, do no harm.” This is a good prescription for changing the way we do business on the earth. Do no more harm. The second line of the oath says to trust in Nature’s ability to heal. That is to say, trust in resurrection. Healing is not only possible, it is inevitable.

The music that comes to me these days is the result of having been rung like a bell ten years ago. The songs reflect the bittersweet themes of sacrifice and resurrection, and the simple message of the troubled waters of Prince William Sound: heal yourself.
“Change a word. Add a verse. This is known as ‘the folk process.’” —Pete Seeger
I am a child of rivers and a friend of rain. I was born in the Ozarks of southern Missouri and grew up near the mighty Missouri River. Like a migratory bird or salmon, I first arrived on the rainforest coast of Alaska 25 years ago. I’ve been a musician all my life, though lyrics never used to come to me. But recently words have been pouring out of me like a river. My fingers start dancing on the guitar, I open my mouth and a song pops out. Damnedest thing.

As a caretaker of the tradition of music and storytelling, I’m compelled now to make a scouting report. In several of these songs I play off of the kernels of traditional tunes or lyrics—an example of how songs are rolled down through the years, shaped and rubbed smooth by our communal voices.

My recent human ancestors are Irish, Scot, Dutch and German, and I’m an adopted member of the Eyak Indian Nation in Alaska. I was adopted into the Eagle moiety, but I’m pretty sure I’m a Raven disguised as an Eagle. The Eyak name given me by Marie Smith Jones, my 80-year old Chief and the last native speaker of the Eyak language, is YaxadiliSayaxinh, the short version of which means “The Thinker,” though the literal translation is “He who causes his mind to involuntarily roam in an indeterminate direction.” A fair enough curse and blessing.

Oh wa ah da Udach’k’uqaxa’ch’. I offer special blessings to all my relations, my parents, my ancestors and loved ones, to the musicians of Ireland and Brasil, to the Ozarks, Prince William Sound and Knight Island, to the Copper River Delta and the Eyak Nation, and to Fishtree —the coastal temperate rainforest of the Pacific Northwest, a living being 2500 miles long from Kodiak to California.

Blessings to all the rivers of the world, may they run and run and run.

The nature of nature is change and healing. Everything is alive. Friend, may you be amused and refreshed. May you be changed and healed by the music.