This is the old story of shepherds and poets who wander the countryside - or in this case, the pavements of New York City - tending their flocks and making songs of love, fame, misfortune, treachery, friendship, betrayal, heroism, of life. Colin Clout is the best of them, best shepherd (he’s a professional dog-walker), best poet, best person, but he’s also the saddest. For he’s in love with Rosalyn, his touchstone, muse, shining star, who’s chaste and virtuous, maybe, but also astral and distant, unreachable . . . and she doesn’t even know Colin exists. So his poems are sometimes celebration, sometimes lament.
Meanwhile, the plague comes to the city, driving everyone into his own small, cramped world of woe on the streets, in the apartment blocks, under the Queensboro Bridge, above Wall Street, across the river in Brooklyn, outside a shuttered jazz club, on the march up Fifth Avenue, on the A Train to Far Rockaway. To Hart Island.
The Shepherd’s Calendar is a modern day urban eclogue of singing competition, love ballad, fight song, repartee, soliloquy and lyric poem. It unfolds, like the original by Edmund Spenser, month by month, January to December, in a never-ending cycle of seasons, births, deaths, and reincarnations. Sometimes for the better, sometimes not. Always defined by the progress of Covid.
The book (to order, click on the Spend button at the top of this page) contains twelve color plates of paintings by Barbara Nathanson, a Southern California artist who has collaborated with me for many years on various poem-painting projects. The recorded version of The Shepherd’s Calendar is available for download through CD Baby and your favorite streaming service. You can find it at Amazon Music in the music button above.
I’m posting one song every Sunday to my account at Bandcamp - ytlb.bandcamp.com. This project’s about as eclectic as it gets. I just write & record whatever is on my mind each week, then post. So you get some folk, some blues, some jazz, some spoken word, some swing. When it’s all said and done, I’ll ask you to select your 15 favorite pieces so I can make an album. Whoever winds up with the most favorites on the album gets a personal concert from me!
C’mon friends! This is a chance to support art and the artist, 50 cents at a time. You can always give more.
I released this album of poems and songs with my band, Program for Jazz, in 2021. The pandemic pushed us off the live performance calendar, which gave us the nudge we needed to write, rehearse and record the album. Think Shakespeare in 5/4 time, e.e.cummings with a backbeat, and you’ve got an idea what it’s all about.
Order the CD here (click on Spend), which comes with a photo book and lyrics, or download it via CD Baby or your favorite streaming service.