Road Trip Music: Hawaii

Destination for this part of the great American road trip is Hawaii. As so many American states are. Hawaii is both a crossroads and a a place where music connected to the landscape flourishes.

Slack key guitar, steel guitar, and ‘ukulele are three instruments which, along with the sounds of chant and the the singing voice, help define the sounds of Hawaii. For the guitar part of things, a good sound track is from the island’s recent musical history, a collection of vintage popular island music from two guitar masters. It’s known just by their names Hawaii's Keola & Kapono Beamer


To learn more about the history of the ‘ukulele in the islands -- and it’s not what you might think -- I’ll point you to this history from Brad Bordessa. Explore his site Live ‘Ukulele while you are there: he has interviews with top players and lots of information on how to play the uke, too.

Israel Kamakawiwo'ole made his mark on the music of the islands too, often refitting popular songs from other styles to a distinctive island sound. Del Suggs, a musician you met back when the road trip was in Florida, offers a bit of the style of Iz, as Kamakawiwo`ole is known for short, in this video.

you may also wish to see
a place to keep up with Celtic music in Hawaii -- yes, there is Irish music in Hawaii, too.
Music Road: Road Trip Music in Louisiana
Music Road: Scotland & Cape Breton: tradition and innovation

This is part of The Great American Road Trip, in which I originally partnered up with A Traveler’s Library to add musical ideas to the book and film suggestions for journeys through the regions of the United States which you’d find there. The Library is closed now, but I think you will still find the journeys through music interesting.
For more about the road trip (and a look at some great road songs) see Great American Road Trip: Music begins

-->If you'd like to support my creative work,
here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this.Thank you.

Road Trip Music in Florida

The other Florida, the land and people, lakes and rivers and woods and towns which exist beyond the tourist trails and high powered beach fronts, is where the Great American Road Trip winds today.

Jeanie Fitchen knows this quieter side of the Sunshine State well. On her album Roads she writes of the dance of the sandhill crane, the Native peoples of Florida, and the little known lives of workers in the turpentine camps years ago.
















Fitchen is from Florida’s east coast. Del Suggs grew up in the northwest part of the state, in the Panhandle. He calls his brand of songs saltwater music, and his style has been called Jimmy Buffet meets James Taylor. There’s that time just before a hurricane hits the coast, which Suggs nails in Hurricane’s Comin’, and the lives of a Wooden Boat. which he explores in the title track of one of his first albums. Life on the waters involves a more contemplative side too, an idea which comes in for songs on Living Deliberately, although the lighter side of things is well represented there too.

If you’ve had enough of Disney World and Miami, or if that’s all you know of Florida, let Fitchen and Suggs lead you on a journey through a different state of mind and geography.



you may also wish to see

Music Road: Almost Christmas: Del Suggs and friends

Music Road: reflections with Adrienne Young

Music Road: Road Trip Music in Tennessee


This is part of The Great American Road Trip, in which I originally partnered up with A Traveler’s Library to add musical ideas to the book and film suggestions for journeys through the regions of the United States which you’d find there. The Library is closed now, but I think you will still find the journeys through music interesting.

For more about the road trip (and a look at some great road songs) see Great American Road Trip: Music begins

-->Your support for Music Road is welcome and needed. If you are able to chip in, here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this. Thank you.

Almost Christmas: Del Suggs and friends

It’s almost Christmas -- and in north Florida that means the continuation of two decades of music making by Del Suggs and friends. Those talented friends include songwriters, singers, and players Mimi Hearn, Pierce Pettis, Danica Winter, Jerry Thigpen, David Murphy, and Pete Winter, and often a guest or two as well. Suggs is known for his Jimmy Buffet meets James Taylor style of laid back music, infused with a tang of Gulf Coast flavor, and that runs through the carols and new and old holiday songs shared at the concert, too.

This year, the troupe gathered at the Warehouse in Tallahassee over two evenings in early December to share We Three Kings reinvented with rockin’ rhythm and ukulele, a handful of Pettis originals including Miriam, his song about Mary as a saint and as a young Hebrew girl, Danica Winter’s classy pop ballad Santa Bring Me Love, and Hearn’s powerful take on Beautiful Star of Bethlehem. The musicians had good seasonal fun through a whole evening of carols and seasonal standards, and closed things out with that southern roots rock classic of a holiday song, Cadillac of a Woman.

This season marks the debut of a recording that shares the spirit of the shows: Almost Christmas





















you may also want to see
Music Road: Cherish The Ladies: A Star in the East

Music Road: saltwater music: del suggs

for a range of interesting photography, visit
Delicious Baby's Photo Friday

Saturday Sessions: Del Suggs on teaching music, part 2

Del Suggs makes saltwater music, a folk infused style of work that’s taken him across the college circuit in the US, gained him airplay in Europe and Australia, and drawn comparisons wit. Jimmy Buffet and James Taylor. He’s also a respected teacher of both music related skills and leadership topics. Here’s what he had to say about what he learns from teaching.


“It's amazing how teaching a topic really opens your eyes to the content-- ideas that you skimmed before now jump out you! While it may be a truism, it's still accurate: the best way to learn something is to teach it.

Teaching is full of "a-ha" moments, when you see the light come on in a student's eyes and you know you've just connected them with the subject. It's really magical when it happens.”

you may also want to see
saltwater music: del suggs

Saturday Sessions: Eddi Reader on writing melodies

ceol chairlinn: sharing music in winter

If you enjoy what you’ve been reading here, a way to support more of it:

Saturday Sessions: Del Suggs on teaching

Del Suggs is a singer and songwriter whose work in music has led him back almost full circle these days to the interests he had while studying for a master’s degree in education at Florida State University. Through his music, he’s had opportunities to work with college students and staff not only on developing music programs but in such areas as career planning, leadership, and goal setting. Here, he talks about what he does to get better at his teaching practice.

“The best things I've found to improve my teaching are reading and teaching,” Suggs says “Reading keeps me plugged into the views of others and helps me learn new concepts and ideas. And when I say reading, I don't just mean ink and paper. I spend a great deal of time reading on line, and it reminds me of my childhood in the library. I've always loved libraries, and loved the serendipity of just wandering the aisles and picking up any book that caught my eye. It's even easier on line. I'll 'Google' something of interest, and an hour later I'm a world away from where I started, just following tangents.

“Teaching also makes me a better teacher. I've always felt like doing something is the best way to improve at it. Not practicing doing it, but actually doing it. It goes back to my early days as a performer. I might practice a melody or fingering for hours and not be able to play it. But once I starting attempting it in a real performance, I was suddenly able to do it. I know that the practice helped, but not as much as actually doing it.”

Suggs is a Florida native who calls what he does saltwater music. You may keep up with his music and speaking gigs at his website, and look for
him at the Association for the Promotion of Campus Activities Conference in New York City (Aug. 24-26), Univ. of Connecticut (Aug. 14), Univ. of Akron (Aug. 15), and Edinboro University of Pennsylvania (Aug. 26).
.
you may also want to see

Music Road: saltwater music: del suggs

Music Road: Saturday Sessions: Emily Smith on songwriting

Music Road: creative practice: laughter

Saltwater Music: Del Suggs

Saltwater music specialist Del Suggs will be one of the artists taking part in a new series we have on tap here at Music Road. Starting in late June, we'll be running a regular series on teaching and learning music, with ideas from Del Suggs and other artists you met here along the music road, plus a few new guests as well. If you teach music, study it, think you would like to, or know someone who is a muscian, you'll find much of interest to look forward to. We'll be talking about both the creative and the technical side of things. Stay tuned here at Music Road for details.

And just what is saltwater music, anyway? Read on.

A Del Suggs set might include James Taylor's song Fire & Rain, Procol Harum's A Whiter Shade of Pale, or the traditional folk song Shenandoah, but most of the songs you’d hear him do are his own, a Jimmy Buffet meets James Taylor meets Gamble Rogers sort of blend that Suggs calls saltwater music. "I've been influenced by all that great music of the sixties and seventies. People ahd much more diverse tastes then. I saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show, and right away I knew that's what I wanted to do," he says. He’s has taken those early influences on to build a career as a singer, songwriter, and lately, as a motivational speaker too.

Suggs grew up in Panama City on Florida's panhandle coast. Florida, the Gulf coast, and the Caribbean, all feature in his songs, which have titles like Caribbean Money, Hurricane's Comin', Break in the Weather, and Standing in the Rain, and his albums include Floating on the Surface and Wooden Boat. "I had a real, professional band from the time I was about fifteen, in tenth grade, I guess," he says. "We were called the Haze, as in Jimi Hendrix and the Purple Haze. We went around and played high schools, military bases, all over the area. We played rock 'n' roll." Suggs played bass in the group, a role he also took on with his next band, Cross Creek, which lasted through undergraduate and master's degree studies at Florida State University in Tallahassee. They played a mix of what today would be called Americana music. The band broke up eventually, and Suggs, who'd always played guitar and written songs on the side of his band projects, decided to go on his own as a solo artist.

It wasn't a decision he came to lightly. He'd seen some of the darker and drearier sides of the music life through his touring with his bands,. He'd seen good sides too "I was really fortunate early in my career to meet a couple of people who really had a lasting impact on me. Steve Meisburg, of the duo Meisburg and Walters, was one of them, just the epitome of a gentleman and really changed my idea of what a musician could be. The other was Gamble Rogers, who was just as good to me as anybody has ever been." Rogers, known for his cracker barrel humor and fine singing gand playing, opened doors for the young musician professionally and personally. "I'd call places looking for work and say I'd opened for Gamble, and they'd say, oh, okay, you can come play," he recalled. "If I was out on the road somewhere and I'd pop in to see him play, he'd always notice me in the audience, and point out 'oh, Del Suggs is here.' They had no idea who I was, of course, but just by the fact that Gamble had pointed me out from the stage, they noticed me -- he always did things like that."

Before long, Suggs was building his own reputation. He's played many kids of venues and his music has received airplay from Eiuope to Australia, but he decided years ago to concentrate on playing at colleges. "For one thing, " he says, laughing, "if only a few people showed up, the activities director would apologize to me and promise to have more people when they brought me back." Working at colleges also fit with Suggs' easy going personality, the stories he loves to tell about his songs, and his interest in teaching. That master's degree he earned at Florida State was in education. It surprised him, though, when one of the organizers of a college conference where he'd been booked to play suggested he ought to be giving one of the talks. He decided to pursue the idea, though it scared him at first. "Getting up on stage with just a microphone, no guitar, just to talk for forty five minutes, no singing, that was terrifying," he says. Why did he take the risk? "I think because I felt I had something to say, something to contribute. I've got techniques I've used and applied in my own life, and seen how they work, ways to set goals and achieve them." He must have been right. His talks on setting an achieving goals have become popular at colleges across the country and he now speaks on several related topics as well. He's written regular columns for publications for college administrators, also, and is currently mulling the idea of turning these into a book.

Music is still at the heart of it, though. In addition to writing and performing, he collaborates on and produces projects with other artists including Carrie Hambly, Mimi Hearn, and Tammerlin. The song writing is a continuing journey too. On his most recent album. Living Deliberately, Suggs challenged himself to add new flavors to his Gulf coast gumbo, writing a starkly moving piece called Standing in the Rain which touches on the life of the homeless, and kicking things up in lively fashion with a Cajun flavored song called Bayou Josie. There's also a cover of the Gram Parsons song Brass Buttons, and a bit of mid life reflection in the title cut. Whatever it is, it's still Del Suggs, and it's still saltwater music.

Next up for the Florida based singer and songwriter are more college tour dates and some speaking engagements. He's also producing a collection of Christmas songs based on an annual tradition he shares with Pierce Pettis, Danica Winter, and other musicians, The Almost Christmas Concerts. You may find out more about Del Suggs and his music at his web site

for more songs of the sea and the waters, you may also want to see

Jennifer Cutting & the Ocean Orchestra

Cathie Ryan: The Farthest Wave

Souls of the Sea

-->If you'd like to support my creative work,
here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this.Thank you.

Del Suggs & Pierce Pettis: Almost Christmas concert

It’s a north Florida holiday tradition that’s been more than twenty years in the making: singers and songwriters Del Suggs and Pierce Pettis join up for a night or two of song called It’s Almost Christmas. It’s that in more ways than one, occurring somewhere from early to mid December, usually, and including sets of current music by the two men, old favorites revisited, and, for the second half of the show, some really original arrangements of familiar holiday songs, along with original songs of the season. This year the concert took place at The Warehouse, an informal venue in Tallahassee, Florida, where the tables were lit by flickering candles with bits of evergreen around, and the stage was hung with strings of holiday lights.

Danica Winter, one of the musical friends who joins Pettis and Suggs for the gig, remarked from the stage that it was so good to come out every year to do the show and see a mix of people who’d come out every December along with first timers at the festivities. She could have been describing the song selection, too. Suggs, who is one of the best known and best loved performers on college campuses across the US, and Pettis, who records his own songs, tours internationally, and writes material that country and folk artists have covered always have stories as well as song up their sleeves, too, and many was the tale they shared this December night, going all the way back to explaining how the two met while auditioning for a campus coffeehouse gig at Florida State University twenty five years ago -- a gig that neither of them got.

Suggs was thinking back to that time during his set. He recorded his first album not long after, and he’s recently re released it on CD. Hurricane’s Comin’, a song based in his growing up in he Florida Panhandle, was his opener, along with a funny story about delivering papers as a kid as a hurricane was approaching. Rick’s, Break in the Weather, and Wooden Boat were among the favorites he sang and then Pettis took the stage and to offered a mix of material including the title song from his forthcoming album, That Kind of Love, a cover of Jesse Winchester’s raucous comment on southern speech, Talk Memphis, and Miriam, a song in which Pettis looks for Mary the girl and woman behind the icons and statues that represent her now.

Suggs promised “songs that you might think you know, but then...” as he, Danica Winter, Pete Winter, and David Murphy moved into a set of seasonal songs. He was right -- they kicked off with Silver Bells, a classic holiday sing along, done with just enough of a melodic twist to keep you intrigued, and then Suggs introduced “an eighteenth century rock song,” which turned out to be a rockin’ version of the carol We Three Kings, which band and audience had good fun with. David Murphy offered his original song Christmas Gifts, and Danica Winter added her own jazzy song Santa Bring Me Love for Christmas. I Saw Three Ships, Deck the Halls, and Good King Wenceslaus were among the other songs enlivened by fine singing, great playing, and lots of laughter. The musicians brought things to a close with Silent Night -- but not quite. Suggs had broken a string on his guitar earlier while playing his song Wooden Boat and hadn’t played all the verses. Several people in the audience called out to ask him to play the full version, and that became the fitting saltwater music encore to bring to a close this December’s link in the chain of Almost Christmas concerts.


you may also want to see

Dave Carter & Tracy Grammer: American Noel

Winter Talisman

listening to Christmas

Gretchen Peters: Northern Lights

-->If you'd like to support my creative work,
here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this.Thank you.