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Connecting - relating - in the darkness there is light - Joshua James
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Joshua James @ Local 506 in Chapel Hill, NC
It doesn't happen often. You can probably count the times it has happened to you on your digits. The emotions you felt when you experienced your first connection with the music of Stevie Ray Vaughn, the places you drifted to listening to Led Zepplin, or level of concurrence you felt as you related to the words of Harry Chapin. These connections which endear you to music and your trusted favorites result from a commonality you experience which builds that relationship which has stood the test of time.
It doesn't happen often - you can count the times.
Standing at the entrance to the Halloween early show at the Evening Muse I began another one of those journeys. You know the feeling. It nags at you. You know you are listening to something special - but a lot of music is special. This one is different for some reason.
Joshua James performed his music with such emotion it was a little spooky. It seemed as if he was reliving the events which led to the words hitting paper and forming a story which he put to music and shared as a song. The anger. The hurt. The sorrow. The pain. All the emotions pertinent to the events he shares through song seem to be relived on the stage as he shares the journey with you.
Leaving the show that night the memory of the performance just hung with me. I spent the next day listening to the two CD's we purchased. My wife wanted them autographed - she loved his sound too. As I worked through the weekend I wished I could relive the performance - and I tried as I looked at show photos and listened to the music coming from my computer. Such dark stories coming from such a young musician. Not old enough to have experienced enough life to tell the stories of maturity present in his song.
Two days later a few stars aligned in the heavens and while eating dinner I got a call from a good friend who also wanted to see another Joshua James show. Although I knew via the nagging feelings that I'd had the past 24 hours that I was going to the show, I needed to take a minute to explain to my wife why I wanted to take a five hour drive to go see this young man perform again when I had just seen him two nights earlier. Crazy? Yes.. But that's part of the DNA..
Ninety minutes later, I along with a couple of other equally insane friends were in the truck headed to Chapel Hill to see another performance of Joshua James & The Great Northplatte.
As I listened to the show that night at Local 506 in Chapel Hill it dawned on me that the connection to his music lay in my relating to his songs. His emotions equaled mine as I have experienced the same pain of loss, of love, of fear and rebellion he communicates through his music. His songs are real. They are of the experiences we share as humans. They speak to the differentiators. His songs communicate the spirituality of darkness and its relationship to the light that we know as life.
So I'll add Joshua James to the list of artists whose effect on me and other people through the emotion of music is remembered and recalled on those digits we have so few of.
Keepin' it live,
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