JAMM: LEAVIN' ON A JETPLANE & JOHN MAYER

I've always wanted to sing this tune, but thought it was the predictable choice... but then I thought, whats wrong with predictable ? :) The late legendary John Denver wrote this song. My parents loved John Denver, therefore I love John Denver and his pure humble voice...  reminds me of being a kid. Peter Paul and Mary made it famous with their three part harmony, now I will attempt to sing it super simply from my living room. Everyone knows this song, everyone loves this song, feel free to Sing along! 

Oh, and This weekend Dave Ray took me to see John Mayer in Irvine... I'm a fan. I've been following John since "Inside wants out" and saw him perform at Mesa Amphitheater twelve years ago with my brother Tyler. From a glossy Room for Squares, to a poppy Heavier Things, to the bluesy John Mayer trio, to the perfect Continuum, to the transitional battle studies, to his California country Born and Raised and his upcoming Paradise Valley... John keeps evolving as an artist. And where ever he goes I will follow. Yeah I know he had his less than chivalrous moments, and has dated everyone from Simpson to Swift and Aniston to Perry... I don't give a whoop about any of that. (haven't said "give a whoop" since the 90's)But I do care about the music, the guitar playing and slaying, the soul, the dedication and persistence to artistry when not a lot of people seem to care about that anymore. 

Small sidenote: I gave birth to London while Born and Raised comforted my agonizing body and petrified mind. It will forever be the soundtrack of the biggest bestest day of our lives to date.

The show was nothing short of magical. The set was beautiful, the band was off the charts. There was a new humility about him, and he got pretty carried away in the music, his face was about to explode with happiness and he was so whitty. What can I say, the guy is talented. He was killing me softly, slaying my soul, blowing my mind, and melting my face off with his guitar.  I came home inspired, ready to write, ready to practice, ready to listen. 

Oh, one last super awesome thing! L.A. traffic was at it's gnarliest, It took us nearly three hours to get there, not so awesome. We missed Phillip Phillips who opened the show, also not awesome (that we missed him, not that he opened, that is so awesome). If only we could've pulled a chitty chitty bang bang over the 405. However as we were driving there, my manager brad was in the backseat, we were listening to the Mayer playlist I put together for the drive, we got to talking about who produced Born and Raised, he googled it and found out it was Don Was... the same Don Was that produced Carly Simon, and Bonnie Raitt and Dylan, and the Stones. I said to Brad "I need him to produce my next record"... he laughed "yeah". We arrived, and we could hear "paper doll" from the parking lot. It was the first song of the set. We ran to will call and got our tickets and then bolted through the pavillion to get to our seats, but I decided to quickly stop at the merch booth and pick up my new favorite "queen of california" t-shirt. I paid and ran with my JM Tee in hand... and just yards away from the ticket usher, we saw this guy with dreads and a hat and cool sun glasses. Brad said "I think that is Don Was"... 

He said, lets go talk to him, so we walked over... I was too nervous to approach him and so Brad said "are you Don" and it was :) I told him that he was awesome, we talked about Carly Simon, he seemed to know that I sing, he was beyond nice. I told him "I would love you to make my next record" like a big nerd. I asked him if he would take a picture with me. He did. True story. Later he went up on stage and played with John. Don Was is awesome.

Lastly, totally and completely unrelated... I put up a baby gate tutorial over on The Girls with Glasses blog. If you have a wild monkey adventure baby that loves to climb to the top of your hardwood stairs, like I do, then you need this gate.