A steamboat pilot becomes a musician, and a vow of silence leads to singing beautiful songs.
This is episode 30 of Caffe Lena: 60 Years of Song. Thanks to Sarah a the Caffe for creating the of songs and artist for the feature.
John Hartford fell in love with two things: music and the Mississippi River. In the 1970’s, he earned his steamboat pilot’s license and would have done that full time but music got in the way. During his later years, he returned to the river every summer to work as a pilot, even after winning Grammys in three different decades.
Heather Maloney spent a few years working at a spiritual living center in Massachusetts where vows of silence were common. She would be silent a week at a time, during which she would journal. Her journaling morphed into songwriting which morphed into performing her own voice in an authentic way.
Caffe Lena: 60 Years of Song, a production of WEXT Radio.