Marcus Hummon

A New Year...

2011 was an amazing year of travel...between July and September, I was away with family to Southern and East Africa; off for a month on my own in Scotland with Fiona Kennedy's THE KIST, at the Edinburgh festival; and then spent a month in New York City doing 2 separate 2 week runs of my own theater work at Off-Broadway Theaters. My collaboration with Abdel Salaam's FORCE OF NATURE THEATER, our hybrid dance theater-musical theater piece, TUT, played at the St. Clements Theater, featured as part of the NYMF 2011. The Irish Rep, offered our musical (Michael Aman is my co-book writer) THE PIPER, a 2-week staged reading with 2 performances. In addition to all this, earlier in the Spring, I was in St. Petersburg with a reading at AMERICAN STAGE THEATER of THE WARRIOR... a book co-written and directed by AMERICAN STAGE's AD, Todd Olsen.

It was great fun, but a lot of time away from the family. I am not sure what the future holds for any of my shows, but hopefully I will get to keep doing theater, and maybe...maybe even write another piece.

As the year begins, there are a few songs which have been cut...notably, Tim McGraw cut a song of mine, HARD HABITS, for his upcoming record...the first he's released in several years. This doesn't mean the song will make the record but at least he cut it. There is a cut on a new artist, Kacey Musgrave, THE LOVE YOU GIVE AWAY, which hopefully will make her freshman MCA release!  

Marlee Scott on BIG RIDE Records / SONY-Canada has cut 5 of my songs, including her first single, BEAUTIFUL MAYBE, which languished on the US charts around #50...but went to #14 in Canada. Her next single, to be released in a couple weeks, is my co-written TRAIN WRECK...so keep an ear out for that one on US and Canada Country Stations, and look for the video on GAC or CMT (I make a cameo appearance in the video...getting my hand licked...yes, I said 'licked').!

I was also asked to produce 3 of the 5 songs that I wrote on the record, and enjoyed that immensely!  Marlee is a wonderful singer, and has a lot of personality, great to fun to work with!

I am hoping that another act that I've been writing and producing a bit on, 'Chris and Johnny' (Chris Roberts and Johnny Bulford) will get a deal this year!  They are two of the best singers you'll hear in the genre...and if talent has anything to do with it...they should be recording for a major!

With regards to performing, I'm back on the fund-raising circuit. On Monday I was honored to be asked to sing at the Annual MLK Breakfast at The Hutton Hotel...for 6 or 700 folks. Becca gave the invocation, and the featured speaker was Dr. Bernard LaFayette, Jr., friend and colleague of MLK and part of the SCLS leadership in the 1960s, and leader of the POOR PEOPLE'S CAMPAIGN (Becca, had him as a professor at Vanderbilt Divinity, taking a class in Non-Violence!). Dr LaFayette was wonderful, as was Becca...I hobbled up on crutches and sang THE BORDERTOWN (check my little video of the same, directed by Patti Blevins, on YOUTUBE)  on guitar, my pal Will Barrow adding accordion!

In February I will get to host (along with friend Dorinda Carter) the annual, GREATEST SHOW EVER, on Valentine's Day at the new club...RUBY on West End here in Nashville! We will once again be raising money for the Holy Cross Hospice of Gaborone Botswana!

In April, the great pop-songwriter-producer Desmond Childs, and I, will be doing a fund-raiser to raise money for the new Thistle Farms Cafe. It will be a night of our theater music. (See THISTLEFARMS.ORG for news of that great ministry!!)

I will also be a part of this year's TIN PAN ALLEY SONGWRITER FESTIVAL, but do not have my assigned date and/or venue.TBD. 

Other than that, I continue to write and hope that the occasional song finds a home!  I have my hand in a couple other side projects which I will describe if/when they materialize.

Love to all in 2012!

Marcus

Here's a quick update on some things coming up in the near(ish) future:

Feb. 25th ...I'll be speaking and singing at St. George's Episcopal
Church from 3:45-5:00 on the subject of Art and Theology as part of
the Christ, Church and Culture Conference being held there.

Feb. 26th...I'll be performing a couple songs from my opera TUT at the
Tennessee State Museum, at a special part for the opening of the
Tutankhamun replica exhibit, WONDERFUL THINGS, which opens February 27th, and stays in Nashville for 3 months.

March 3rd...I will be singing along while Becca speaks at the Scarritt-Bennett Center from 8:00-10:00PM as part of the FTE event there.

That's what's right around the corner. Out in the future I'll be in
Aspen at their songwriting festival April 1st, 7:00PM at the Wheeler
Opera House...c'mon out!

Theatrically, I am still working with Michael Aman on the script for
THE PIPER after our wonderful Actor's bridge production of the same at
Belmont University in November. I am being reunited with my director
and friend Michael Bush on this project, and excited about future
developments. Stay tuned...

With TUT, I have submitted the show to the NYMF (New York New Musical Festival) as a Oratorio/Dance collaboration with Abdel Salaam and TheForce of Nature Dance Company. We have been fortunate in the past by being accepted into the limited slots with WARRIOR ('06) and THE PIPER ('07)...both directed by Michael Bush.
**By the way, Bush is about to open the show CACTUS FLOWER at the
Westside Theater Off-Broadway...check it out if you can!**

Other projects include scoring a movie, the IMAX-film 'We The People,'
an exploration of the US Constitution and it's amendments, narrated by
Morgan Freeman and Kenny Rogers. I hope to get to write for and work
with Paul Kwami and the incomparable Fisk Jubilee Singers. If
everything goes according to plan, we should premiere the film at the
Smithsonian on Constitution Day this upcoming September!

All for now!

Magdalene and Thistle Farms on PBS

PBS came and did a special on my wife Becca's work with Magdalene and Thistle Farms...

Check it out here

I'm really proud of her and all of the people involved in this incredible work...

A little piece of my story...currently the first chapter in a book entitled "Bless The Broken Road" I wrote about my journey with songwriting...

The first cut I ever had in Nashville was Michael Martin Murphy’s PILGRIMS ON THE WAY in 1988, some 20 years ago. It was a rolling travelogue of the places and faces I had seen as I made my way to the Mecca of songwriting, Nashville Tennessee. The lines in the chorus read:


You don’t know me
But I know you
We are pilgrims
Pilgrims on the way


Fast forward 20 years and I find myself standing in front of a couple hundred or so students from the Berklee School of Music in Boston, asked to speak about the profession of songwriting. As I look into the eyes of these hopeful souls, I tell them that songwriting is not really a vocation in the contemporary sense, that it is more like a ‘calling’ in spiritual terms. It is a prism through which we refract Truth and Beauty. I am thinking this may sound a bit pretentious coming from a songwriter who has written such luminary lyrics as…


I’m ready, ready, ready, ready to run
I’m ready, ready, ready, ready-ready to run


Still, it is exactly how I have come to feel about this life I’ve chosen. I came to Nashville as any poor pilgrim might journey to a sacred site, with little to my name, committed to seeing and visiting the holy sites, to venerating the saints, to facing the brokenness of my nature and hoping to achieve a kind of ‘enlightenment’ through the writing of songs; or as I sometimes refer to them, living poetry.

There are many holy sites for the songwriter. In truth they exist throughout the world, but having come to Nashville in 1986, my options narrowed a bit. First and foremost there was of course the Ryman Auditorium, the Mother Church of country music, and traditional home to the Grand Ol’Opry. To stand center stage, facing the Confederate
Gallery, was akin to praying before the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem for devotees of country music. Then of course to the west of the state was Graceland, home of Elvis Presley which would have to be seen and experienced. While I was at it, I would need to cruise the blues bars on Beale Street…maybe stop off at Al Green’s church for a little gospel hour. On a smaller scale, back in Nashville there several famous dives lining lower Broadway just below The Ryman Auditorium, places like Tootsies, where country stars had honed their songwriting and drinking skills for years. One of my favorite little dives (long gone now) was Mack’s Country Kitchen, where Willie Nelson was said to have stripped naked and walked outside the little bar and grille in the Vanderbilt University setting, and begged a truck to run him over. Perhaps these stories were apocryphal, but like all apocrypha, they were tantalizing to the pilgrim soul.

In concrete terms, the first steps in the ‘stations of the cross’ would take me to the Sunday afternoon auditions at The Bluebird Café, for a slot on the Monday Open-Mic Night Show. Anyone with any hope at being the next Nashville singer-songwriter-poet had to stand before the measured gaze of the Bluebird’s owner, founder, and High-Priestess…Amy Kurland. The line of applicants was around the corner so I took my place, and when I had my chance I played my song for Amy with youthful exuberance. Amy was gracious enough to give me the thumbs up.

Monday night came and the chosen 12 were given their baptism by fire in front of 100 congregants packed into the little room (the room seats 75 comfortably, and so it was jammed, as it is most nights). Each novice was allowed two songs to play in front of a crowd that always seemed to have a few music biz notables lurking in the shadows. It was about this time that I learned that the open mic performance was not the only part of the evening’s liturgy. Every Monday Open Mic Night also featured the appearance of a ‘Guest Writer’…usually a successful published and/or recorded singer-songwriter. I asked the attractive young hostess at the door as to the name of the guest writer, and she said, ‘Kevin Welch’ with breathless anticipation. Never heard of him.

I remember thinking that I had done exceptionally well with my two songs. In fact, I was quite certain that I had been the best songwriter that evening, and so, flushed with self-congratulations I sat back to take a long sip on a well deserved beer, as the guest writer stepped forward. Kevin Welch was this skinny, languid, long-haired Oklahoma boy, with a wry smile and piercing blue eyes. He looked like a portrait of Jesus you might find in some Methodist fellowship hall. As he began to strum his guitar and sing, he seemed both entirely present in that little bar, but also far away. It was as if he were looking across a field, like in ‘Christina’s World’, Andrew Wyeth’s famous portrait of American yearning. And his lyric began:


O life is like
A candle bright
Death must be the wind
You can close your window tight
But it still comes blowing in


I put the beer down and felt a tightness in my chest, my mouth was suddenly very dry. The room that had seemed to pulse with restless energy now seemed as still as a tomb. He continued:

Let me watch my children grow
To see what they become
O Lord don’t let the cold wind blow
Til’ I’m too old to die young

As he sang my mind left the tomb and was transported to a field far off, the same field that Christina and Kevin were staring across. I could see a house on the hill, and the lights on the porch coming on as night approached. I could see, standing on that porch, my beloved…my wife yet to find, my children yet to be born, and my heart was filled with a great yearning. I yearned for a life full of meaning, full of living poetry.

I left the Bluebird Café that night, scared and excited. Listening to Kevin Welch perform TOO OLD TO DIE YOUNG, I realized how far I had to go on my journey. At the same time I said a prayer of thanks for having chosen the path of the pilgrim on the way.

This is something I wrote in response to a friend's comment regarding women's rights within the Islamic religion, and in particular, with their unwillingness to partake in a peaceful demonstration of solidarity with the Islamic Center in Nashville because of the Center's requirement that the women enter through a different door than the men. I thought I'd share my thoughts...
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I think the Islamic Center is actually, like most of world-wide Islam, quite moderate and thankful for the freedom to worship...respectful of that right etc.

Certainly in the West and in Christendom, we have achieved what I consider to be enormous gains for the rights of women. However, even in our own liberal culture, women have only been 'voting' for a century. Catholic churches and several evangelical denominations do not offer women the honor of being pastors, effectively asking them to "enter from another door."

As far as Muslim services go, the men and women worship separately. I have been told that this reflects a cultural modesty (among other things) as much of the worship requires one to prostrate oneself in tight-knit lines. However, I would agree that even the moderate within Islam is lagging behind in women's rights.

When I lived in Saudi Arabia as a young man, I used to wonder at women forced to don the abaya, and at the general conservatism and underlying misogyny of many of the beliefs. However, as I studied Islam, I realized that there is movement towards equality and women's rights within the broader spectrum.
I suppose the real issue is that Muslims are being persecuted in our country, and unjustly accused of all manner of evil by those who have never read the Koran, nor deeply considered the width and breadth of world-wide Islam. Fanaticism in Islam is what is being projected to the West in the media, largely due to our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some of this is understandable, as we are at war, and concerned daily with the lives and sacrifices of our men and women in arms. However, any serious consideration of Islam leads one to note that most of the Islamic world, the vast majority, are not fanatical Shia, or insurgents, or suicide bombers; but rather, loving persons, in the midst of their own highly complex cultural evolution...leaning towards justice, equality and moderation just as all sensible people in the west are.

We need to stand in solidarity with common sense, and offer (with some cultural humility) a dialogue that supports the rights of women.

I'm honored to share the release of our video for ROSANNA... a woman whose story has changed my own life in many ways, who continues to inspire me on a daily basis...

For those of you who have listened to the title track from my new album ROSANNA, you might wonder about the story behind the woman who has taken the spotlight in my latest musical endeavors. The following is a background piece I wrote for Sojourners (www.sojo.net), who describe themselves as "a progressive Christian commentary on faith, politics and culture, that seeks to build a movement of spirituality and social change." I'm honored to be associated with the great work that Sojourners does in any regard, but especially as it relates to the topic of immigration, my own personal faith, and the stories of people like Rosanna who live out these "issues" every single day.
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I came to be friends with Rosanna through my wife's work. Rev. Becca Stevens is the founding Director of Magdalene, a two-year residential program for women with a history of prostitution and drug addiction. She also founded Thistle Farms, a bath and body care company where the women of Magdalene create all the wonderful products and are employed in all phases of the business.

I heard Rosanna's story through tears...hers and mine. I heard how Rosanna had been kidnapped, raped and beaten and brought first to Mexico, and later to the US as a sex slave at the age of 14. She showed me the many cigarette burns and spoke of the fear and intimidation...of the importance of crying out while being raped, because the men enjoyed it. When she stopped crying out, they called her a whore. I learned of the misery of years on the street and subsequent addiction and incarceration; also, I learned of her joy at the birth of her daughter.
Through the prison system Rosanna came to Magdalene and began her journey to health and sobriety. At Magdalene and Thistle Farms she was a shining light, bright and hopeful. It was clear that she was going to make it. Imaginative and hard-working she began to build a business cleaning houses, while also gaining clients as a manicurist. Soon after graduating from Magdalene she was able to buy a car and rent a house for her and her daughter.

She was stopped at a light by the a policeman for having a flat tire, and he asked to see her documentation. Unable to provide a green card she was immediately extradited to a prison in Louisiana where she was held for 7 months. Magdalene attempted to find a legal solution and bring her home to be with her daughter, but their efforts failed and she was deported back to Honduras.

In returning to cross into the US, Rosanna faced humiliation, extortion, intimidation and possible death. Her traveling companion, Karla, a young woman who ran with Rosanna for 3 days after crossing the Rio Grande to a spot designated for picking up the refugees, drank water from a farmer's poisoned well and died calling out the names of her two daughters. We've all heard the stories, but the image of immigrant bones gleaming in the moonlight as the group of 13 souls ran through the night...this image stays with me.

Rosanna is a survivor. She tells her story through tears, and one can truly imagine her struggling to stay afloat across the Rio, or pressing on for three days with little water beneath the scorching sun...all to see her daughter again.

Rosanna is beautiful in the most natural of ways. She is unwavering in her faith and believes that God is with her even in the midst of terrible injustice. I have never heard her utter the words, 'why me?'.

I do not know all the answers to the issues surrounding immigration and immigration reform; but as a songwriter, I am running alongside Rosanna, dealing with the Mafia, swimming naked across the Rio, staring at the border fences and listening to the sound of the dogs barking and the helicopters above, seeing the human bones shine with moonlight, leaning Karla's body up against a tree and pressing on...I know this is not the America that I believe in. As a Christian, how can we speak of souls as 'illegal'. The song 'Rosanna' is just one story among millions, and we must listen to these stories and look into the faces of those struggling all around us. Only then can we act, speak and perhaps suffer...with compassion.

Marcus

Doing our Atlanta stop on the FIND YOUR WAY HOME prison tour, and I realized that the Hampton Inn we are staying at for a couple days is right next to Peach Tree Creek. Becca and I drove a few miles and found the historic battle site, where the Confederates countered and were caught in a cross-fire along the creek. It was one of the bloodiest days in the confederacy, and now there is a park and creek-side walk...

HERE ON THIS FIELD CHILDREN LAUGH AND THEY PLAY...

Two months ago, while on tour in the UK, I played an old opera house in Bristol, and sat in a room where Ira Alredge sat in 1855, just before doing Othello...Ira was inspiration for our Hamlet. The promoter asked me if I had seen the ghost of Ira, as he is said to visit the opera house from time to time.

Thinking of the great times we had with the show!!

Rosanna

Hello and welcome to the new site.  I'm glad you've stopped by...

I'm looking forward to using this space to keep you all up to date with what's happening in my life, events that are coming up, etc. as well as being able to fill you in on things that I find fun and exciting... like, the release of my new album, ROSANNA.

ROSANNA is such a joyful record to me. It is a return to recording, a return to playing live on the road, and a return to thinking of myself as an artist. A lot of the work I do (and am thankful to have as work) is writing with and for other artists. With ROSANNA the album, and specifically ROSANNA the song, I find myself speaking as an artist in a very direct fashion.

I loved getting to work with my dear friend Darrell Scott on this...there is not a more talented or gracious soul; and I loved touring with Beth Nielsen Chapman, and singing these songs and promoting this record in the UK. 

I had also planned to sing a song of my son Levi's...ONE AND THE SAME. I have been listening to his songwriting and doing some recording with him for a year or so...and just love this tune. Once I started singing it though, I missed hearing his wonderful, youthful voice, and so song #9 is Levi singing, with Darrell and I in support.

For those who enjoyed ALL IN GOOD TIME, THE SOUND OF ONE FAN CLAPPING or The Raphaels SUPERNATURAL...this is certainly the next in line, taking into account a few older songs that were recorded by others, with several newer offerings. If we are blessed to sell enough records to re-print, there may be additional songs added...we'll see, so stay tuned and enjoy.

Click here to check the album out on CDBaby