Songwriter-Songwriter is Going Back to School

Songwriter-Songwriter is Going Back to School

In late 2007 I decided to move to Belmont, Massachusetts, USA. I was 70 years old, living in a free studio apartment in Bangkok, Thailand, enjoying the best job an old guy like me could ever want, but as fate would have it, a course was coming up at the Harvard Extension School that was a perfect fit for me.

My best friend, Mao Sim, was finished with her doctorate, and would graduate ten days before the course started. It would be the perfect course for her, too, because it would not only introduce her to the science of climate change, which will play an ever more important role in all our lives, but would introduce both of us to the impact climate change will have on human lives, and the diplomacy and ethics that will apply to societies as the changes occur.

I’ve taught science nearly full time for almost forty years, and Mao has worked with refugees and Homeland Security and other human rights and immigration issues, and plans to study economics and statistics in order to apply her philosophical principles to the practice of public policy making. Career-wise, moving to Belmont, where Harvard is only fifteen minutes away was an excellent idea. Mao is located in Back Bay, Boston, and will do her next post-doctoral studies at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, if her plans work out.

As for me, I’ve been resurrecting and refreshing old music that I wrote when I was playing and singing in the US Army clubs in Germany in 1976. I began writing songs again when I moved to Thailand in 2005, just before Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated New Orleans and the eastern coast of Louisiana, and two weeks later, Rita devastated the western Louisiana coast.

In Bangkok, a colleague at Assumption University told me he had studied at Berklee in Boston. That intrigued me, and Tuesday I dropped in to check it out. At 2:30 PM today, I’m scheduled to meet with the head of the songwriting program there. I would really like to spend a year or more studying there, but I will need two things: admission to the program, and some kind of financial aid. I hope today’s visit secures both.

If that happens, I’ll have so much more to say in songwriter-songwriter, for I will be studying with people who have helped super stars of the music world reach their peak, people who’ve worked with Lou Rawls, Michael Jackson, Angela Bofill, Jerry Butler, David Geddes, Janet Lawson, and others. I’m so out of it professionally I did not recognize some of these names, and had to go to YouTube to find them and listen to their music.

Soon, I hope to have http://bostonmusicianscoop.com organized and on line, and next year I hope to start http://worldmusiciansmovement.com up and running.

Meanwhile this blog will slowly develop. To see where I really intend to be in a year, so to http://musicforabetterworld.blogspot.com, where I’m already doing my charitable musical thing!

Walkin’ In the Drizzling Rain

© 2009 James P. Louviere

Walkin’ in the Drizzling Rain,

Walkin’ in the Drizzling Rain,

You know I really hate to complain

But it’s getting’ really hard to refrain….

I feel like Cussing all this Drizzling Rain,

Cussin' all this drizzilin’ Rain!

I got rain in my hair,

I got Rain in my shoes,

Walkin’ along Singin’ the Rainy Day Blues!

Walkin’ in the Drizzling Rain,

Walkin’ in the Drizzling Rain,

I looked at the sky and the sky was black,

Look like Katrina was comin’ back!

And I’m Walkin’ in the Drizzling Rain,

Walkin’ in the Drizzling Rain,

Staying’ just one step ahead of the pain,

Walkin’ in the Drizzling Rain,

My mama said Son, don’t fight and don’t cuss,

And make sure you never miss the very last bus,

I went to the corner, they ain’t go no bus,

That driver don’t like to wait for folks like us,

I don’t want to fight and I don’t wanna cuss

But it looks like I just missed the very last bus!

I been Walkin’ in the drizzilin’ rain,

I’m walkin’ in the drizzling rain,

I went to the Shelter, but the Shelter was closed,

I gotta get out of these soakin’ we clothes

If I want to say dry and eat without fail,

I gotta get back in that Jefferson Jail,

Hey, Mr. Sheriff, Hey, Mr. Lee,

Take another look, don’t cha recognize me?

Reach in yo’ pocket, Get that long brass key,

Open the door and make some room for me,

I rather be dry, and eat without fail,

Like it is when I’m here in the Jefferson Jail,

I don’t wanna go outside and walk around free

Cause on the outside there ain’t no place for me,

I’m always Walkin’ in the Drizzling Rain, Walkin’ in the Drizzling Rain,

Stayin’ just one step ahead of the pain,

I’m walkin’ in the drizzilin’ rain!

July 30, 2009 09:05 AM

I'm Not Writing Songs Right Now Because. . . .

It would be nice to have time to write new songs and remake my most recent music videos. I did them with a Logitech Quick Cam Pro, which has lots of great features, but the sound does not please me. I'm also not really well set up with it, so I'm not condemning it, only saying that I have not set it up for music videos. It seems great for talking to people, even as a Real Player file, if not live, but I'm working on my Music for a Better World.blogspot.com blog, and its counterpart, http://bostonmusicianscoop.com, which is hosted for a fee at HostGator. I have so much work to do, and so little time. Maybe that's good, since I am "retired" and don't want to be bored.

what's keeping me up all night on the Internet? I have a dream. Here's where it starts: We owe something to the kids to be born in decades to come, and so far, our legacy looks really bad. Imagine being born into a world where climate changes make life very difficult, or, for many in Africa and lands dependent of monsoon rains, nearly impossible, a world where miserably poor and desperate people are given weapons and sent to the better off place looking for a better life, or, if that's not attainable, revenge for being victimized - rabble rousers from various nations or factions will supply the propaganda to make migrating people attack rather than join their new neighbors. Imagine being born into a land where the money does't buy enough to feed your child. Imagine finding no power when you turn on the lights, or no clean water in your pipes. Most people in the world are like that. No power (no refrigerator, no elevator, no lights or computers - they are getting along without anything that requires power as Americans know it. I spent 30 months, July 2005-January 2008) in the most populous area in the whole world, Asia, and I saw how the great masses of people live!

It's my dream to unite music makers, producers, technicians, performers, writers, marketers, everyone - even dancers - in creating music that will inspire people to be just, kind, tolerant, and to respect the earth and all its living things, human and non-human, and its great weather engines, the sea, landforms, and atmosphere. so that life can continue to flourish as it has in the past.

Please go to musicforabetterworld.blogspot.com and, soon, http://bostonmusicianscoop.com to join in this great, worldwide effort.
Thanks!
James P. Louviere

About Writing "Cockleshells and Me"

About 1976 I spent four or five months singing in US Army officers clubs and enlisted clubs in Germany while teaching in a Defense Dept. junior high school for dependents of military and civilian people assigned to Germany, and moonlighting for the Univ. of Maryland teaching English Composition and Public Speaking to soliders and civilians at Army Education Centers. I sang a lot of Kris Kristofferson, John Denver, Hank Williams (Sr.), Pete Seeger, Dylan, and other people's songs, but I was very happy to add my own songs to the mix. They were popular with the audiences, but I eventually stopped the gigs because my wife and I had a new baby to deal with, and my schedule was pretty full with teaching as well.

I continued being active in Catholic chapel music in Schweinfurt, then in Heidelberg, and again in Schweinfurt. Again, I led the people in familiar hymns and in my own compositions. My friends and the chaplains really liked by work, but I didn't publish any of it, and in those days there was no YouTube.

Here is a song I sang back then. I hope you like it. You can watch the video at

http://that-hands-on-music-guy.com, click here

COCKLESHELLS AND ME-(c) 2009 James P. Louviere

If you liked this, please post a comment. If you have any questions or suggestions, please contact me at louviere444@yahoo.com

What We Need is a Plan - Duh, you say you've got one?

Today, the day after Easter, was a sunny but breezy-chilly day in Boston, and I was headed to the center of the city to help my friend with her push cart full of wonderful handcrafted sukj scarves, bags, clutches, and so on. It's what I do when I'm not writing songs, keeping books, and taking care of my own educational publishing business. 

In my lap was my 3 ring binder, open to the pages where I'd printed out the most amazing, inspiring, and useful book about developing your own musical business that I've ever seen.KavitHaria wrote the short, powerful e-book and he gives it away as a  FREE download from his website, http://innerrhythm.com.  

How To Design a Winning and Profitable Music Business - by Kavit Haria, Music Business Consultant is all about business, but from the viewpoint of a performing artist who is his or her own manager and responsible for the master plan that will result in the kind of success musicians long for.

Kavit's complete InnerRhythm.com website is like a bookstore where everything is there for free.  It does not attempt to teach music.  He says that if you know you're good at music, what you need is a Master Plan that will provide you with the opportunities to create your own success.  He reminds us there are huge numbers of really good musicians, singers, songwriters, and so on, but few have the good fortune of being supported and promoted by a record label or talent agency.  So what you need is his step-by-step system of running your musical activities like real business.  You need first a Strategy, and then a series of tactical tasks have to be done in order turn your Strategy forward and get the day-to-day chores done.  For that you have to attract, recruit, and enliven your group in order to become a part of the music industry.

It's 2:40 AM and 'I have some work to do tomorrow in boston, but before I sign off, I want to give you one example of how Kavit makes the whole concept of becoming a musical "somebody"with a powerful basis for your Strategy clear and do-able.

We all feel like want to succeed, but exactly where we should start is vague.  Before you even think of building a strategy, you have to be sure you are on solid ground, based on your inner feelings and the way you respond to things.  Kavit tells us that a certain "great soul" asks people, "What makes you come alive?" No matter what they answer, he says,  "Go spend you time doing that!" 

That was easy for me to answer.  Singing my own songs really makes me turn alive!  Nobody can sing them like I can sing them, because I've lived every word of them. So what should I do when my chores are done an I have a chance to have fun? I lie down in a comfortable place with my guitar and sing the songs I've written.  If I'm near an open mike and listeners, I walk over there with my guitar and sing my songs. It's the most alive thing I can do in public without breaking the law!  Kavit has given me the key to clarifying my passion, my vision, and the long-time source of life energy that moves me to action.  So that's where I'll base my strategy!

Once I was asked to give a lecture on leadership to twenty or so Ph.D. candidates from all over the world.  We wanted to know the difference between Strategy and Tactics.  I led off with a slide of the Great Allied generals and their heads of state in World War II bending over a map of Europe, pointing to important areas of attack and defense, plotting the path the war would take in the entire European campaign against Nazi Germany.

Together they the their successful Strategy, or Big Plan for Victory.

They did not actually get into combat.  That was for their troops to do.

The last slide was a cartoon portrait of a war-weary GI who'd been through long tough months of infantry combat, gaining ground inch by inch, advancing across Normandy and on through France and Belgium and into Germany. His dented helmet and his scruffy, tired face, and his dirty, torn jacket contrasted with his faint smile and his tired "thumbs up" gesture. He was the guy who did the Tactics, the detail work that made the Strategy work. If you are the leader and the commander of your own musical destiny, they you will have to work out a Grand Strategy and recruit, attract, and develop the "troops" who will carry out the tactics and get the results you want.

Kavit Haria gives your career a huge lift when he gives you his compact,  29 page book about planning your musical career. It's a great jump-starter. His other free materials are there to lead you further as you develop your career. I heartily recommend Kavit's excellent work, and I've already started putting it in action by writing you this message.  Writing maketh the precise man, said a fellow named Roger Bacon.   Re-writing make good writing, as Professor Stronk says.

Now that I've condensed Kavit Haria's book, I know it better, and can go get some sleep and start writing my Strategy tomorrow!

James P Louviere, DrHanzonScience, AKA http://that-hands-on-music-guy.com

Went to Kris Kristofferson's one-night stand in Boston

I'm busy with taxes, which I hate and try to postpone until I'm six feet under, but I took off about 5 PM yesterday with no ticket and a nice camera that was forbidden in the theater, and sho' nuff, there was the Man I've tried to imitate forever. Actually, he was in the Army in Germany, a West Point grad and a helicopter pilot, and sang in the GI clubs. I loved his songs, because they were written stright out, with passion and intelligence and strength of character, nothing sleazy, no knock-offs of anyone, just Kris himself.
I used to teach writing and public speaking for the Univ. of Maryland in Army Education centers in Germany 1975-1994, and I used him as a example of great writing. You can't change one syllable, one word, one comma or anything without making his songs weaker. They are that taut, that strong, that personal, and that well structured, polished, and perfected. You know when he's done his work, it's good work. There is no, absolutely no, such thing as good writing. There is only good RE-writing. Right! Rewriting and turning things in and out and up and down and tightening up, eliminating the fat, the fluff, the do-dads, the gimmicks that are often thought of as "poetry" or "style" or "art." Forget it. If you can eliminate even two or three words from a poem, a song, a speech, or a novel, you'll have a better piece of writing.
Kris amazed me. I've always loved his songs, I've never seen him in a movie, and never seen him life. But we're both 72, both singers and songwriters, but he's famous and I'm not, yet. But until last night, I thought he might have an "attitude," something I might not like. He did not. He came out with his harmonica around his neck, like Dylan in the old days, and his acoustic guitar with the electrics inside it, hidden, thank God, and he sang softly. No belting it out. No showmanship or dancing or anything lame or puny or stupid. He sang. I have only heard him on the radio, and that's not too often, and I thought he had a hard time holding a note, like he was a great actor and songwriter, but no singer. Last night he was so cool, so intimate with the audience of mostly mature people, and noisy, for a Boston crowd, without any "show" or dancing girls or laser lights or smoke, just a guy you would like to know much, much better, a guy with rich values and a world of vision and experience, overpowering in his mild and simple way. I've been suffereing from terrible sinus problems and I've been realy bothered by Tax Time, but since about ten last night, after I waited until I thought he'd come out of the theater, but he did not, so I passed a copy of my "Ballad of Sam Bede" (about a soldier who died in Vietnam in 1971) in a lig white envelope with my DrHanzonScience card taped in the return address place, and his naje in big Marker black letters on the front - to a guy who was making sure everthing was squared away in the alley next to the stage door, and asked him if he'd be seeing Mr. Kristofferson. He said yes, and agreed to hand him my envelope. I could not cut a CD until today, somehow I got the computer to make a good one with 11 of my favorite songs on it - all written my me, and sung my me, with just my 90 dollar guitar, here in this office where I sit, avoiding sleep . . . and I hope to be sending them to may favorite musicians. I need someone to give me a lift so I can make some money. I've dedicatd my whole life to doing good things for people, and I'm broke, so I hope somebody out there can use my songs and let people hear them and support me and my work. That would be nice karma!
If you have not listened to my songs, go to youtube.com/user/DrHanzonScience and click on my funny name. "My videos" will be ina dropdown menue. Click and listen and watch. I hope you like them.
James Louviere in Belmont, MA, louviere2001@yahoo.com

A Complex but Happy Time: Middle of March, 2009

I've been too busy to write or post new songs on YouTube (see youtube.com/user/DrHanzonScience, which is my "channel" with 14 songs rated 5-stars, and a couple 4.5 stars, and a video of Mao Sim at her Mao Sim Silk cart in DownTownCrossing pedestrian mall, Boston, MA, a Latin guitar player (3 stars), a "bottle neck blues" guy from New York City, playing in the subways of Boston), and a drummer playing on Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA.

For a week or more, I've been preparing my 2008 tax forms. Still gathering materials I need. That's always a really nervous time for me.
My old college, the College of Santa Fe, is going to close down May 22. They went bankrupt. I've booked a flight to attend my 50th anniversary of my original BA, general science, minor English, 1959. Hugh Downs, the TV guy, was our commencement speaker.
I got word that my handicapped friends in Louisiana don't have any more Lou-Vee-Air
Car parts so I have to order 10,000 more sets of parts. That's always a tough time too because it's a big investment and always has an element of risk involved.
Another thing on my mind is getting back to work on the pushcart occasionaly. I went in to help today and it turned out to be fun, and I helped sell over $100 dollars worth of silk bags myself while the wonderful Mao Sim was getting some work done at her warehouse and at the Haymarket Square produce market, where she bought me broccoli, mangoes, bananas, apples, lemons, oranges, and tomatoes, at least 15 pounds worth, for only $13.00. Mao is amazing and knows how to squeeze every penny of every dollar until she gets a really good buy. I enjoyed a dinner of mangoes (s), a banana, spaghetti and Ragu sauce, whole wheat toast, an orange, an apple, raisins and two plums. I'm being a good vegetarian now. that's good, because I had some turkey soup last night and 3 blueberry muffins (a gift), and had a very bad attack of gout in my right elbow all night. Major pain. Uric acid causes gout, and it can wreck your eyes, kidneys, joints and tendons. Gout is really a bad disease, very dangerous and painful. So begetarians don't have much of that. Only the broccoli I know have is a real facor in gout, so I'll have to be careful of that.

Songwriter-songwriter saw a fellow with a new musical instrument in a box today as I rode home in the city bus. I gave him my youtube.com channel (above), and he sent me a video he just made using the new instrument. I thought it was one of those things that sound like a Zyther, but it turned out to be a ukeleli. He recorded Oh Prudence, and did a good job of it.

Well, I have to go no and get some sleep. Remember, when you write a song, make sure it does not have "poetic license," which means twisted sentences forces to fit into a rhyme pattern artificiall. Good poetr should all work well without twisting the words all around to "fit" the song tune. Until next time,
James DrHanzonScience Did you like anything in this post? What was it?
Did anything bother you or puzzle you, or shock you? Making comments is not just OK, it's very important so I'll know there's really someone out there I'm writing to. That's what a blog is for. Cheers! James

TUESDAY, MARCH 10, 2009
Hi. Two weeks or more have passed and I've been working to finish and file my 2008 taxes. I have not had time to write about songwriting or make any new videos worth posting on YouTube. But I have one thing to say today, and I'll make it short.
I once used Blogit.com, and my Religion and Spirituality blog was always in the to fifty, usually in the top 20, week after week, and since there were about10,000 blogs on the subject, that seemed to be pretty good. I have not posted there for over a year, but I still have the fire in my heart to write about apiritual values and concepts.
I don't carry any particular religious flag here, because there is too much divisivenss, and it seems that if you life any particular banner, it sparks hostility and hurt feelings among many, many people. Soi all I have to offer on the subject is this: There's something about poets, songwriters, singers, actors, artists, dancers, people of every kind in the arts and humanities, that seems to be characteristic of most: We are all drawn to a higher plane, a higher Power, like sunflowers turning aa landscape, unanamously and all at once, toward the sun. They are classified as "heliotropes," or sun seekers. I've noticed that most really inspired, soulful, deep people are "Theo-tropic," that is they turn toward "Theos," the Greek word meaning god, or God, if you perfer. We generally live less well structured, less conformist lives than the general population, many of us marry several times, often turbulently, or drink or smoke or party too much, or do other things that may be more or less taboo for the general population, but one thing is sure, as faulty and "weak" as some of us are, as prone to human frailty and "bad behavior" as we may be, we are drawn, nonetheless, in the direction of the Higher Power, God, the Lord, and that seems to be true in 'way more than half the people I know in the arts and humanities. Songwriting is part of that scene, and I'm happy that so many of my friends and dearest ones in the arts and humanities are "Theotropic" people, like me. Without offending anyone by being selective of this or that way of expressing this "turning to God" type of trait, without saying this is "my way" of relating to or expressing my love for the Almighty, there is no doubt we are in general agreement that good is better than eveil, beauty is better than ugliness, and kindness is much, much superior to rudeness, and finally love is better than cruelty, affection is better than hate.
Now that's off my chest, I'll get back to my Income Tax Forms, and have them in on time (for the first time in years!)
James P. Louviere, AKA DrHanzonScience (Go to YouTube.com/user/DrHanzonScience for more.
PS: Please post your comment now
Posted by DrHanzonScience at 6:31 AM 0 comments
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2009
Is Songwriting somehow connected to "blessings"?
There's a really nice custom we have, but as a commentator mentioned in an email today, saying God bless you" or "Gesundheit" or whatever is probably just a nice, polite thing we do that kind of binds us all in a nice warm network of humanity. But lately, in the exact same time period when Ive been incredibly creative, posting 17 musical videos on YouTube in 21 days, and having 12 of them rated "five stars" (the highest rating), and two at 4.5 stars, and three not yet rated (two are very dark, and probably discourage rating by being so dark), I have been giving blessing right and left, to whomever seems like they may be receptive. I'm old enough and harmless looking enough that I don't tend to frighten people, Check out my video I'll add at the end and you can see what I look like.
I'll tell you next time we meet how blessing is connected to wongwriting, but for now, just assume it is ("take it on faith")and let me bestow my no-fail blessing on you:
Bod bless you! Eery day of you life, from today on, will be marked by some unexpected, "undeserved," un asked-for blessing straight from the Divine source of all life and power. This I promise will happen!
It will, and you'll be amazed, but don't expect to get "free money" or any other much advertised "benefit." Look for more important, vital, relationship things that will work out for you in surprising ways. I'll let you in on my secret next time I blog with you. Meanwhile, if something happens, please let everyone who reads this know, by your comment. Happy Valentines day!
I have 3 songs without ratings. Here's the URL for one: the dumbest Man Taking Blues: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uc7Uw6Q34bM.