We are full steam ahead working on the next issue and I would like to put out a call for all you music lovers who also love to WRITE about music….let me know who you are and your ideas….need some coverage in LA….lower Alabama, as we like to refer to it.  Let me hear from you!

Sorry I am just now posting about Bamajam….been a little under the weather.  But what a great festival this is!  I highly recommend it for all you music lovers next summer.  I hear you can buy 3 day passes for next year right now for $75  and the headliner is Kenny Chesney.  And I thought 99 bucks for the 3 days this year was pretty good.  This festival is done just right and spread out just perfect with the 3 stages.  The main stage is for the country acts (which finished up this year with Kid Rock….hmmm) and the other stage is the alternative stage.  Where I saw Blackberry Smoke (excellent), The Whigs (very cool), G. Love and Special Sauce (funky) and hometown boys (and girl), The Drive By Truckers…rounded out by The Black Crowes!  And that was just Friday night.  They also had a stage set up like a bar that featured all the more up and coming local bands….which is what I’m all about and I saw some absolutely great performances there!  Look for Hightide Blues and Spoonful James soon.  Even though it rained on Friday…the weather recovered just in time for the music which started at 4pm and it was just a very easy festival to maneuver.

The first issue arrived today–it looks great!  I couldn’t be happier.  Celebration is in order.  I have to admit…it never gets old.  You think after producing so many magazines in my publishing career….it would just be another mag.  It’s not.  I gets better all the time.  I am so proud of this magazine and what we created–and the way we created it.  It’s really an amazing journey.  I don’t think I have any special editing talents….but I do have a remarkable talent for finding people who are as passionate about the project as I am.  And that is the best part.  The journey.

Okay…I know…there’s a big hole in the blog….I’ve been advised that I should  tell why.

I decided to do this blog a month ago and so I went back in time and worked and thought and considered and wrote all the things I had been through to create the magazine.  I did it on my computer–not within the blog format.  That was my first mistake.

The second mistake–  not consistently backing up my work…I know you have all been there.  Please shed a tear for me here.  Because….

then it happened.  My computer crashed.

What happens to your brain when you lose everything like that?  I can’t remember a thing?…I’m blocking all out?…I’m so mad I can’t focus?  I had a pity party…i curled up in my bed and cried.  I admit it.  So pissed at myself for not being vigilant in backing up my work…especially creative work.

so…I’m working on putting it all back…great reason to check back on a regular basis…maybe that makes it a good thing….love to look at the bright side:)

When I pitched the idea for the magazine to David at the Alabama Music Hall of Fame I had so many ideas about the content….I mean, it’s Alabama Music Magazine!  There are a million things to cover.  This is when the editor in me has to come to the surface.  The music lover has to be quiet and let the organized editor do her thing.  So what are my goals?

I want to cover every genre of music in the state. But I cannot do that in every magazine…and certainly not the first one!  So focus on what’s happening now…who is making it happen right now—relevant to this magazine.  Certainly the reason why I chose Jason Isbell and his band for the cover.  Alabama boys busting their ass on the road touring like madmen.  Charlie Louvin, AMHOF inductee, still touring his ass off and making fans from the last 3 generations, wow.  He is amazing, wait till you read the interview from Tim Jones about this icon of Alabama music. He is the type of inspiration that musicians want to know about.  He just loves what he does.  

So you can see that the goal is to combine the up and coming artists with the guys that have already done it. That’s the FIRST goal…what’s next….?

I asked my friend  Dale Drinkard, Jr, to write something for the magazine.  He is such a creative thinker and always fun to have an in depth conversation with.  He says to me today:

 ”If everyone would just realize I’m right about everything, my life would be so much simpler.”  

Here, here, Mr. Drinkard–no arguments from me.

My lunches with DDJ are always enlightening. We meet to talk about the magazine articles we have been working on and it always goes so much deeper. Today the discussion ranges from Jeff Beck, to The British invasion, to Greek history, to Dostoevsky, to Mark Twain along with DDJ actually reading me some passages from Huck Finn that had us cracking up and everyone around us thinking we were weird.

He’s a musician but he’s decided he wants to refer to himself as an artist. ok. You just have to realize he’s right about everything and it’s all good:)

Just when you think that shooting a cover for a magazine with a well known artist is going to be so cool…you get shot down so quick it makes your head spin.

AC and I met Jason and the band at the Mercy Lounge in Nashville the night of their show.  We were told by Jason’s publicist that we could shoot right before they went on–but we never really got a specific time frame….oh and did I mention….we had to shoot in the green room….and hope you don’t have to set up lights or anything….not much room or time for that.

The room is dark and small and dirty and really not much character to speak of.

Luckily, neither AC or I have a big ego…..and AC is a total trooper about the whole thing.  Honestly, in retrospect, I don’t know many photogs that would have been able to perform in that situation.

So the band members arrive slowly and we chat a bit as the opening bands come and go.  Jason’s publicist arrives and has stylists and clothes for the guys–which is pretty cool–and the clothes are from Billy Reid who is a kick ass designer from Alabama–lookin good.

So they seem ready and we try to get them all together…there are 5 of them….the clock is ticking–pay attention.  I am holding this tiny little lamp on the guys that just happened to be in the green room but I had to find a bulb for it.  AC is shooting away and we are moving them and changing them up and she is up and down and back and forth–just trying to get an angle.  I wish we had video taped it–it HAD to be comical to watch–and it CERTAINLY didn’t look professional!!  She and I just laughed about that later.

Okay so were you paying attention….the clock was ticking….only we didn’t know it then….but all of the sudden Jason’s publicist says: “Okay, that’s enough, they have to get ready to go on.”  And as quickly as we started it was all over……came to a screeching halt.  AC and I just stared at each other…I said, “well, I hope you got something–that couldn’t have been 15 minutes.”  whew…

Well, she DID get something….that’s talent.  And I made her check the time stamp on her camera from the first shot to the last….exactly 14 minutes.

Just something to think about when you see the cover and the article feature photos.  It’s a glamourous life this job:)

I met Haley Walden back when I was doing Bliss magazine.  Although she is a soft spoken, thoughtful type, she had no trouble coming up to me at an event and telling me she would like to intern for the magazine.  She did.  And I have to say, she was the only intern/writer I ever had that did what she was asked to do with little or no direction, no issues, just did the job….and she did a GREAT job.  And then she was gone.  She got a much better intern gig with Fame music–she is a musician and a writer–so perfect for her.

So when I was talking to Rodney Hall at Fame about the magazine, he suggested I ask her to write….ding ding ding..yes!  Haley!  She is perfect!  There is nothing better than a young person who loves music to WRITE about music.  I decided she should be the one to interview the songwriters…since she is one.  Unfortunately, I didn’t think I could connect her with our chosen songwriter, Neil Thrasher, so I gave her an even better assignment…..Spooner Oldham.  That was difficult…I wanted to interview Spooner!  He just got inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame!  Damn, it’s great when I make the right decision.  She wrote an awesome feature on Spooner and his life.   I can’t wait to see what she does next.  This girl is a gift to the mag.

Creative Director, James Wright, aka “Mr. Right” as he will be referred to from here to fore in this blog…. has been creating fake mag covers for a quite awhile.  We have a nice little collection of them.  They have many uses when you don’t actually have a magazine yet.  First, it helps with the creation of the logo…you can’t really see how it will look until you put it on a cover.  Second, clients want to see it.  You can talk about it all day long….but it all comes to life when you show anyone a magazine cover.  Ahhhhh…..the long awaited look of understanding and heightened interest really happens then.  Almost like…”I didn’t really know what you meant–magazine? –until you showed me that cover….now I get it.”  It’s a visual thing…it doesn’t bother me because I’m like that myself.  I need to SEE it.

I think that the logo is great–modern, but still cool.  Notice the tagline….it  changes –Executive Director of the AMHOF David Johnson (Director) suggested it.  And believe it or not…I like it.