Music tours, being just that, are first and foremost road trips, albeit with two vehicles: the music itself and the car. While each show we did had it’s own flavor, each day was dictated as much by travel conditions. Who would have thunk it would snow in Dallas? And the math of getting from point A to B, carefully calculated before leaving, takes on a different cast when you’re in real time. In 15 days we had one day off from music, which fortuitously allowed us to split a particularly long day in half and stay with friends along the route. Still, the tight schedule found us in the car for more than 10 hours each day on the last two days of the trip, en route from Santa Fe to Vegas, Vegas to San Francisco. Truth be told as much as I like traveling, —moving through the ever-changing Southwest landscape is half the draw—I was a little heartbroken to spend such small amounts of time in Santa Fe and even Vegas. I once spent a fair amount of time in New Mexico and the whys of that all came flooding back to me surrounded by sage and pinon and desert mountains and those bright bright stars at night. Plus everyone there, from venue owner to audience member to cafe worker was immensely friendly. Likewise I could have spent a bit more time amid the wacky skyline, rife with neon and flashing signs, the desert air and the surrounding mountains that is Vegas. Nonetheless, after moving through the Mojave, up and over the Tehachapi Pass which was blazing with spring wildflowers, we arrived in the Bay Area to wrap up the tour in Sunnyvale with Indian Food, bandmates and the music. And after 10+hours of SLEEP, I’m happy to see that spring has arrived here as well.
Deborah Crooks (www.DeborahCrooks.com) is a writer, performing songwriter and recording artist based in San Francisco whose lyric driven and soul-wise music has drawn comparison to Lucinda Williams, Chrissie Hynde and Natalie Merchant.
Singing about faith, love and loss, her lyrics are honed by a lifetime of writing and world travel while her music draws on folk, rock, Americana and the blues. She released her first EP “5 Acres” in 2003 produced by Roberta Donnay, which caught the attention of Rocker Girl Magazine, selecting it for the RockerGirl Discoveries Cd. In 2007, she teamed up with local producer Ben Bernstein to complete “Turn It All Red” Ep, followed by 2008’s “Adding Water to the Ashes” CD, and a second full-length CD “2010. She’s currently working on a third CD to be released in 2013.
Deborah’s many performance credits include an appearance at the 2006 Millennium Music Conference, the RockerGirl Magazine Music Convention, IndieGrrl, at several of the Annual Invasion of the GoGirls at SXSW in Austin, TX, the Harmony Festival and 2009’s California Music Fest, MacWorld 2010, Far West Fest and many other venues and events. She toured the Northwest as part “Indie Abundance Music, Money & Mindfulness” (2009) with two other Bay Area artists, and followed up with “The Great Idea Tour of the Southwest in March 2010 with Jean Mazzei.
