I love the creative process, even though I know there will be more than one uncomfortable section along the road to completion. Finishing a project is not unlike climbing a mountain or running a race: you prepare as well as you can but challenges you didn’t expect will arise and test your resolve… and hanging over it all is the specter of failure.
“It’s so easy not to do something right now,” I said to a friend, a singer who is in the middle of completing her own next big project. We were both at that point where you are facing some obstacle, be it an aspect of doubt or a logistical challenge, and question, again, why you decided to do such a complicated thing in the first place. Especially living as we are amid increasingly contentious times and wars are raging. Hope in general is a challenge when so many people are hurting and polarization has become a norm.
But continuing, keeping the faith amid the challenges that come up between initial inspiration and the intended destination is where the rewards lay. And not doing the thing — neglecting the inspiration for the record, show, book, etc., especially when we have the ability to do the thing —is not only soul-killing, it means the oppressions/oppressors win.
A few days later, I did something I’ve never done before, and attended two back-to-back shows by the same artist. Allison Russell’s music has felt like medicine to me for the past couple of years. When her tour was announced, I bought tickets to her Mill Valley tour stop. When another show was added in Novato, I bought tickets to that as well, even though it was the night before! Those dates rolled along just a few days after my talk with my friend and the timing couldn’t have been better.
While Russell’s work gets categorized as ‘Americana’ (she does play banjo), her music is equal parts disco, funk and folk, and ultimately defies genre. To my ear and eye, she is simply a fully actualized artist who has transmuted sexism, racism and trauma into making music that is joyful, healing, spirited and inspiring. Friday night at the Hopmonk, many of us were both dancing and crying through parts of the show.
“This is a calling in, never a calling out,” Russell said to introduce ‘Eve Was Black,’ before she and her all-women Rainbow Coalition Band nearly burned the place down with their fierce and soulful performance.
At the end of each show, the band circled up at the front of the stage for an all-acoustic three-song set showcasing her Birds of Chicago song ‘Superlover’ with some updated lyrics:
Tears of rage tears of grief
Israel, Palestine to Tennessee
We need a super love
Need a super lover
“We can all be super lovers,” she sang in conclusion. Each show was a triumph of art and spirit, and I left each feeling more than encouraged to stay my own course.