Happy Halloween!
In honor of the occasion, I’ve posted another new song from Perfectly Legal: Songs of Sex, Love and Murder at glennabell.com. It’s called “The Southern Gothic Wedding Waltz,” and I wrote it while I was snowbound in a tiny kitchen at the edge of New York City on a bitterly cold day in January of 2009. I had seen a television episode, a true story about a preacher’s wife who finally “snapped” and murdered her abusive husband and fled with the children after enduring years of domestic tyranny, which she had accepted for so long as her plight, being a good, Christian wife and mother. It got me thinking what it would be like to live a life like that, year after year after year . . . “For twenty-five years, I got up at dawn, three square meals a day, but everything wrong. Dear God, what have I done?” goes the refrain. The theme of this one is murder, and it is intended to complement the album’s introductory track, the American folk classic Frankie and Johnny, which is a rollicking, barrelhouse treatment of the same theme, dating back to Civil War days.
In response to the inquiries about how to buy the CD in time for Christmas, it is available on Rhapsody, and there are links to Amazon and iTunes posted on the glennabell.com homepage. The record has been in stores for about twelve days now. If it’s not in stock, you can request that they order it through Burnside Distribution.
All of the reviews that have been coming in are really thoughtful, well written, and flattering! Here’s a link to a good one by Mark S. Tucker at FAME (Folk & Acoustic Music Exchange): http://www.acousticmusic.com/fame/p06800.htm
I’m surely looking forward to getting back up to New York for my show on November 21 at the Living Room. I suppose it’s a cliché, but I must say, “I LOVE New York!” And many thanks to everybody who forwarded my last newsletter to your friends in the Big Apple. Several of them emailed me to say that they plan to be at the show, which is very good news. In the meantime, I’m enjoying this gorgeous Houston weather . . . the cool, sunny Saturday afternoons, sitting in with friend and fellow-songwriter, Jimmy Pizzitola, at his family’s historic barbeque joint over on Shepherd at I-10. This week I’ll also be making a radio appearance on November 4 at around 11 a.m. CST, playing one of Houston’s most popular morning radio shows, Wide Open Spaces, where I’ll be helping promote the KPFT fund drive, as well as a performance that I’ll be doing that evening at Houston Community College for the CAFÉ (Cultural Arts for Everyone) endowment. I hope that you’ll join program host, Roark, and me at kpft.org or tune in on the dial at 90.1 FM if you’re in the Houston area. And y’all come!