We are so excited to tell you that ROADMAP – our album of time-honored social justice songs reworked for these times – is HERE!!
Making ROADMAP certainly had its twists, turns, flat tires and fix-it tickets, but it was a true labor of love. We hope it will fill your heart and bring you encouragement, resolve, and a sense of historical continuity and present day community. We can’t wait for you to hear it, and we can’t wait to hear what you think of it.
What is the power of music to affect positive change? We’ve been wrestling with that question for the forty years we’ve been together. Two years ago, when we started to grapple seriously with the dire specter of a resurgent Trump, we pondered how our music can best meet this historical moment. Funny songs are a great way to diminish wannabe dictators (and we’ll always happily Heil in Der Fuehrer’s Face) but it’s much more powerful to couple funny songs about bad guys with songs that center and celebrate the ongoing effort of everyday heroes to create a more perfect union, a healthier planet, a fairer society.
Our thinking in 2022 mirrored Rachel Maddow’s as she released her magnificent podcast, ULTRA. Maddow’s theme in ULTRA is that we’ve been through similar hard times before, and the heroes of the past can instruct us about how to deal with what we’re facing now.
In ULTRA, Maddow says, “One of the uncomfortable truths that you find in the dark corners of our history is that fascism happens, recurrently.” But she reminds us that each time fascism has flared up, freedom fighters have risen to the occasion and defended democracy. Maddow says it was “the plucky, creative, heroic efforts of clever, brave Americans … who came to democracy’s aid when it needed them the most. And now … We inherit their work.”
Add a banjo to the mix, and the heroes are extra plucky.
So in 2022 we began work on an album of cover songs - social justice standards that speak to these times. We chose nine of the songs, and we had our newsletter audience submit suggestions for the final three. Then everyone voted on the submissions to select the songs that would round out the album.
And then we let these songs pass through us. ROADMAP is not a collection of predictable Kumbaya sing-alongs. (Although we encourage you to sing along (!) and we’ll be creating opportunities for you to sing along with us.) Our mission was to take classic songs and reshape them for this particular time.
We added lyrics to some songs, we reworked the lyrics on others, and we even created a whole new set of lyrics for one song. Then we arranged ROADMAP widely and deeply with layers of vocal harmonies and the heft of Americana instrumentation. We encourage you to listen to ROADMAP with headphones - there’s lots going on in there. We’ll detail the songs of ROADMAP in our next blog.
We hope you will consider supporting our work by ordering ROADMAP, available as a download or as a CD. The downloads are sent to you instantly. The CDs will ship in January, but if you buy a CD now, you will get a free download too, emailed to you instantly upon purchase. Such a deal!
You can order the album download as a gift as well, and stuff a stocking with a ROADMAP gift certificate.
ROADMAP is also available in discounted bundles. You receive download bundles instantly. When you order CD bundles - we will ship all but ROADMAP now and then we’ll ship ROADMAP separately in January. As always, if you would like a copy of ROADMAP but can’t afford it, let us know and we’ll send you a free download.
We are headed for hard times, but this is our moment to stand up for democracy. Take heart that we are all part of a great continuum, and history will look kindly on us.
We are so glad to be in this good fight with you.
Roy and Melanie
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