The Music and the Musician That Saved My LIfe - - -

   Well, maybe this post's title line is a tad hyperbolic...and perhaps I am being overly dramatic...hmm...it's possible.

   Still, listen to Govi's "Treasure Bay" for yourself.  Buy one of his albums, open up the windows and get some sun, put on some funky-chicken shorts and a cheap Hawaiian shirt from Wal-mart, grab a Tequila drink of your choice, put on your sunglasses and lay down on the chaise lounge with GOVI turned up....the cares, worries, and sorrows will melt away. I guarantee it.

   The time was late 2002 going into 2003. My, ah, vocation was tanking big-time and I had a band of individuals who were after me with their long bloody knives out of the scabbards. I have NEVER gone through a worse time.  I had such anxiety and inner turmoil I thought I was going to have a heart-attack.   And then, I discovered GOVI by sheer accident at the Lawrence Public Library.  I brought home the disc GUITAR ODYSSEY and plopped it into my CD player.  I literally felt my blood pressure going down.  I felt my life (sure, feelings are subjective Dr. Phil....so sue me) taking a turn out of the blue alley of depression into a sun-lit corridor of secular peace.  I quickly bought most of GOVI's back catalog and began listening to all sorts of so-called "new-age" instrumentalists. The title or label "new-age" is very hurtful and counter-productive, as any music without lyrics can be no more or no less "new-age" than it can be Mayan, Methodist, or Planet Mongo Military marches.  Calling something that has no libretto "new-age" simply because the composer happens to be a follower of some mumbo-jumbo confuses the suclptor with his stautue.  Music as the great Duke Ellington once said is either good or bad. And there is where subjective choices and personal tastes come into play.
   GOVI certainly re-introduced me to my favorite instrument: accoustic guitar. I began once again to listen to Liona Boyd, Segovia, and Phil Keaggy. But GOVI also opened up for me Armik, The California Guitar Trio, Nova Menco, as well as non-guitar based groups such as Cusco, Dagda, Anuna, and Lesiem.   I was even introduced to the incredible Japanese composer Kitaro, as well as re-introduced to both Enya and Clannad (artists that had profoundly moved and nurtured me in the mid 1990s and 1980s respectively).

Milage may (well it DOES) vary, but GOVI's magical musical puts me and my heart/soul/spirit into a place of sun-shine and safety.