Contemplify

The first time I hung out with songwriter extraordinaire Del Barber was back in 2005 when he drove me from Calgary, Alberta to Winnipeg, Manitoba. I fell asleep almost immediately after he turned the ignition, waking hours later confused and unsure which Canadian prairies we were in the middle of. Del told me I snored. I apologized. He said he didn’t mind. The only other conversation I remember from that drive was about the sacredness of wine in various religious traditions. This would be the first of many long stretches on the highway together. This was back in the days when I believed ol Robert Keen that ‘the road goes on forever and the party never ends’. In 2015 when I heard one of my favorite songwriters, Del Barber, was going to be playing the fabled SXSW music festival in Austin, Texas--I knew I had to be there. So, I called up my pal Del Barber to see if he would have any time to bounce around Austin between shows if I made the drive from Albuquerque. He said he would, and even secured me a free pass