Southern California on the RoadToPortland

[Click for tour dates]

The RoadToPortland continues! In just 10 days I’ll arrive in Oregon to record the new album.

Below are some clips from the Southern California leg of the tour. It was a special few weeks with Diane Badie joining me on vocals.

Thank you to all my Patrons on Patreon and to everyone helping out on the tour.

If you’d like to become a Patron of my tours or learn about Patreon, visit patreon.com/lukeslott.

I hope you enjoy these moments from Southern California…

Luke

Direct YouTube Link: youtu.be/wxPUIfaY1WE

 

Report from the Road / Duet with Diane

Greetings from Los Angeles!

LA is the mid-point of the #RoadToPortland and a musical highlight of the tour since Diane Badie is joining me for several concerts in the area.

Having Diane with me on the road greatly enhances the concerts because we can sing the duets from Year of the Nightingale.

Yesterday we played one on Facebook Live, in the video below, which also contains a brief report about how the tour is going so far.

Thank you to all my Patrons on patreon.com/lukeslott – you are helping me get closer to my goal! – and to everyone helping in so many ways on the #RoadToPortland. 

Luke

Duet with Diane ‘Seek No Other’

If you’d like to follow my music and travels,

subscribe to facebook.com/lukeslott and youtube.com/lukeslott

 

My First Month on Patreon

Dear friends,

Here’s a brief announcement about my first month on Patreon and the next month ahead on the #RoadToPortland.

Greetings from Phoenix, Arizona!

To become a Patron of my tours or to learn about Patreon,
visit patreon.com/lukeslott

Learning about Racism in America

As I leave the American South for the second time and move on to the next phase of the #RoadToPortland, I’m thinking of last year’s #SouthernTour.

My 2017 journey through the South was an education. At the beginning of the tour, I was struck by a comment made to me by an Uber driver in Washington, DC. When I told him I was setting out on a tour of the South, he said, ‘At least you’re the right color.’ He was African-American.

Growing up in Ireland, the subject of racism and its history in America was not something I knew much about. We had other problems in Ireland: sectarianism, nationalism, terrorism, to name a few. Traveling through the US over the past year, however, I find myself with a growing eagerness to understand this most challenging issue in American society. 

As I looked back through my Southern Tour Diary, I found these clips (below) of a conversation I had one day with a local resident in Birmingham, Alabama. I didn’t get this man’s last name, but he shared the same first name as my father and brother: Michael.

Sitting at the site of the 1963 Birmingham bombing, when the Ku Klux Klan bombed a Sunday morning church congregation, killing 4 children and injuring 22, Michael told me the story of the harrowing events that took place in Birmingham, and about the work of Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth who played a key role alongside Dr. Martin Luther King in the beginnings of the civil rights movement in America.

The more I talk to friends about racism here in the US, the more I understand it to be something far more ferocious than a merely abhorrent way of thinking. It seems more like a kind of disease of perception, a distorting blindness that cripples the mind of its thinker. When we perpetrate acts or entertain ideas of racism – be it in the institutionalized structures of society, the unwitting biases of our impulses or in the secret judgments of our hearts – we not only harm those we hate, but we make ourselves fools and victims of a great lie. To consign a person’s identity and worth to their mere membership of a particular group – race or otherwise – is to be blind to the complex multidimensional reality of every individual human being, including our own selves.

I hope, in my travels through America, to arrive at a better understanding of the disease of racism, its various forms, its history, its causes and symptoms, and the demanding nature of its remedy. In my efforts to understand some elements of that remedy, a friend shared with me this passage written by Shoghi Effendi in 1938:  

“Let the white make a supreme effort in their resolve to contribute their share to the solution of this problem, to abandon once for all their usually inherent and at times subconscious sense of superiority, to correct their tendency towards revealing a patronizing attitude towards the members of the other race, to persuade them through their intimate, spontaneous and informal association with them of the genuineness of their friendship and the sincerity of their intentions, and to master their impatience of any lack of responsiveness on the part of a people who have received, for so long a period, such grievous and slow-healing wounds.

Let the Negroes*, through a corresponding effort on their part, show by every means in their power the warmth of their response, their readiness to forget the past, and their ability to wipe out every trace of suspicion that may still linger in their hearts and minds.

Let neither think that the solution of so vast a problem is a matter that exclusively concerns the other.”

(*At the time of writing in 1938, Negro was a commonly used and socially accepted word)

Beyond the counsels in the above quotation, I’m also beginning to understand that the remedy to racism – in America and the world – demands far more than the mere examining and adjusting of the intentions of our hearts. So deeply ingrained is this disease in the civilization we have built, that its remedy seems to require a complete reformation in the structures of society, in our systems of education and even in the architectural planning of our cities, neighborhoods and homes. If the world is not to be deprived of the untapped talents and capacities of millions of people, surely the remedy to racism requires the conscientious participation of the whole of society.

As I sat with Michael that day in Kelly Ingram Park, looking at the site of the bombing, it was a remark he made at the end of our conversation that spoke to me the loudest:

‘It’s not just a black man’s issue.’

Direct YouTube Link: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyBVaVVXFE5aDQEkNlex9yjb-QE2SXtUZ

If you’d like to become a patron of my tours visit patreon.com/lukeslott

Next Stop New Mexico

Just as I was setting out on the #RoadToPortland, some friends in New Mexico made a very funny Facebook appeal asking me to include their state on the tour.

I couldn’t resist and I’m thrilled to be on my way Santa Fe, New Mexico, right now.

I’m driving across the heart of Texas and will soon be 8,000 feet above sea level in Santa Fe. The clip below shows my route and the tour dates are at lukeslott.com/tour

Thanks to everyone following the tour and spreading the word, and a special thanks to everyone helping me work towards my goal of sustainability on Patreon. If you’d like to become a patron of my tours, you can learn about this at patreon.com/lukeslott

 

Build the Road to Walk it

Driving off Linda’s ranch outside Houston yesterday put me officially on the #RoadToPortland.

Over the next 2 months I’ll make my way through the Southwest, West and Northwest… all the way to Kelly’s recording studio in Portland to record the next album.

As I set out on this tour, I am thrilled and humbled by your support for my Patreon campaign.

In less than 5 days you’ve brought me more than a 5th of the way towards my goal of making these music tours realistically sustainable throughout the future.

Supporting my music in this way not only enables me to fully focus my energies on developing and offering my musical presentations to more people, but it means that you, as a Patron of the Arts, are playing a crucial and practical role in this new venture.

A friend of mine once told me, ‘You have to build the road in order to walk it.’ I’m grateful to my Patrons that we are building this new road and walking it together.

If you’d like to become a Patron of my music, or simply learn about my Patreon Campaign, visit patreon.com/lukeslott (You might even see yourself in my Patreon video 😉)

With my unending thanks to my first 42 Patrons,

Luke x

Tour Dates at lukeslott.com/tour

Music Workshop Live from Houston today!

Dear friends (and patrons!!)

I am blown away by the support coming in on my Patreon Page (already!)

I’m in Texas right now, in the middle of a music workshop with some local Houstonion youth.

We’ve spent the last few hours practicing and we want to share a new song with you on Facebook Live. Keep your ears open this afternoon on facebook.com/lukeslott 

IMMENSE thanks to all my new patrons on Patreon!

Luke

 

 

Patreon Now Live

Dear friends,

I’ve just launched my Patreon Page at patreon.com/lukeslott

This is a new venture for me.

I hope, more than anything, that it will be a learning experience about creating art in the 21st Century.

I would be honored if you would join me along this path of learning.

With my thanks always,

Luke

Direct Link: patreon.com/lukeslott

 

 

 

Patreon Launching This Weekend

Dear friends,

Due to the large workload preparing for the #RoadToPortland Tour, I’m going to launch my Patreon Page this weekend instead of today. (see here for ‘What is Patreon?’)

I’ll send you a link when I launch it, and if you like the idea of becoming a patron of my tours and musical presentations, I’d love you to check it out.

Luke

What is Patreon?

Greetings from Washington, DC!

I’m preparing to head to the American West over the next 2 months – all the way to Portland, Oregon to record the next album (!)

On February 1, as the tour begins, I’ll be launching a Patreon Page as a way to help sustain my ‘music & stories’ tours.

If you’re interested in the idea of becoming a patron of my tours (from Feb 1 onwards) or if you’d like to learn more about Patreon, have a look at this short video called What is Patreon?

See you along the #RoadToPortland in February & March! (tour dates at lukeslott.com/tour)

Luke

What is Patreon? Direct YouTube Link: youtu.be/rwvUjAv6pxg