LDS Musicians

I believe I'm stepping into a mine field to even take on this subject, so to lead this off, let me just say I'm no expert on LDS musicians and can only give a very limited perspective. This much is certain, there are more LDS musicians out there making great music of all kinds and all genres than I ever imagined. I have to admit in the past to having taking a jaded view of the whole idea of finding great music to my liking among LDS musicians. I have since found out (once again!) how wrong I can be. Again, I can blame my kids for exposing me. It all started with Ryan Shupe and the Rubber Band and Peter Breinholt. Those two played at many local events, most notably the Freedom Festival in Provo. They continue to play locally in spite of RS&RB finding a measure of broad popularity including radio air time and making it on the country charts. I also remember seeing Cheri Call at Freedom Festival and I may have also seen Nancy Hanson there but for some reason she didn't really register until I checked out her wonderful cd "Drops In A Bucket" from the library. Those 4 remain high on my list of awareness. They all fit in with my current interest in folk, country and bluegrass. Another great country duo I recently became acquainted with is Joshua Creek. I found a couple more girl singer I like at:

http://music.mormontimes.com/index.php

They are Amy Van Wagenen and Carrie Scott. Amy sings LDS pop and has a very lovely voice. Carrie sings jazzy, bluesy stuff similar to Bonnie Raitt and Susan Tedeschi. Quite a unique sound. Of course there's also last year's American Idol finalists David Archuleta and Brooke White. Who can deny Achie's great vocals? Unfortunately for me, I don't exactly match his target audience. Brooke White, on the other hand, has the potential to make my top 10. I'm anxiously awaiting her first cd since Idol. I hope it continues in the Carole King, Carly Simon direction she took on the show. As I first said, there are many more artists out there deserving of mention. I wrote about some others around Christmas time. Also some people will probably take me to task for not saying something about the Osmonds, but who doesn't know about them? I want to encourage exploring lesser known talent. With a little research you can find something you'll enjoy. I hope this piques some interest in LDS music. I personally intend to keep my ears open and continue to support my local people.

Dad's Latest

After reading John's funny post I'm almost tempted to make a list. Just a passing thought. I'm sure I won't act on it!

I thought everyone would like to know Kathy's knee replacement went great. She even slept well in the hospital. That's a first. What a blessing. We brought her home yesterday on account of Stonehenge not taking our insurance. We thought she could use some more physical therapy before attempting the stairs in our home. Turns out she did much better than expected. It's weird, but she walks better with crutches than with a walker. Anyway, things are going well. I'm off this week to help her out. Hopefully by next week she won't require my constant help and will be able to get by with Josh and Matt's help.

I'm finally getting around to using the record to MP3 converter the kids got me for Christmas. It works really well for clean records. The simple software that came with it converts the record tracks into Itunes tracks. If you want to use the more sophisticated software that has noise clean up capability, it becomes more complicated. Being the lazy sort, I'm probably not going to mess with the complex stuff for now. Hard to believe it took this long to get Blood Sweat & Tears on my Ipod. If I'm as happy with this as I think I'm going to be, I won't need to purchase one of their cds or download their stuff. My record has all their songs I really like.

Since I've got some time at home I may just post a time or 2 more this week.