Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I’m truly thankful for all of you who follow and love my music.
Even though there is so much struggle, hurt, fear and loss this year, there is still some things to be thankful for this Thanksgiving—family, friends, and the health we have, and the human-made music that continues to flow throughout our culture. And I also want to state that I am thankful for so many courageous Americans who publicly stand up for the less fortunate among us in our country and around the world, and bear witness to what it is to be a free people. This is a gift of humanity that inspires me. Americans are citizens no longer “subjects” of the state as we usher in America 250 within weeks from now. And that means that some of us in the country have a designation to serve others as responsible citizens. If life in America is all about ourselves, our own profits and getting ahead at the expense of many around us, then I believe we dishonor what it means to have citizenship of this great country. This divine idea of directing the course of the country as a citizenry unfortunately withers to a temporary status we are appropriated from the next highest bidder when we ignore sacred obligations to each other—our fellow human beings. Our rank and eminence written on a piece of government paper can be instantaneously left behind that next time you vote a certain way, or do not vote at all.
As a human, I live my life as an artist, and perhaps surprising to some, I don’t apologize for it. It means to me that I carefully choose how and what I want to play, or go about my life, but I only settle on it if it serves anyone before myself. By description, it is the audience that is elevated more than I should be, for I am silent without them. If I am not lifting others up from what I do with my artist role in life, inspiring people in my audiences who perhaps I don’t know, have never met—and maybe will never meet personally in the future, then I am not really doing the job. Music is for the purpose of embracing everyone at any given moment in their lives when it is the right time for them, so a career musician such as myself is more about public service than anything. You can think of the artists and the citizens of our country being at the service of others in the same way, and that feels right to me.
Today I’m posting this official video clip from the new ‘A Christmas Duo’ album, “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas”. There’s a few solos on the album including a tune on this ol’ gem of a 1924 Gibson mandocello I’ve had since I was 14. I am performing this piece along with many others featuring my very talented wife Maggie O’Connor on our ‘An Appalachian Christmas’ tour around the country this month and next! The mandocello is an instrument I don’t play all year long until Christmas. There is something about this occurrence that proves to me at least that as an artist you can be a mere vessel for the music. When it flows you grasp it if only for a little while, and then like a heritage, you simply pass it on.
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#happythanksgiving #markoconnor #achristmasduo #anappalachianchristmas #music #newmusic #mandocello #passiton
