Minerva's Touch Records
I've loved music all my life, particularly once I quit playing the piano as a child and took up the trumpet instead. I enjoy listening to various types of music, including folk, reggae, jazz, classical, and Jewish liturgical music (sorry, but you won't find country or rap on the list). My favorite is the "old fashioned" rock n' roll that is epitomized by the Stones of the late 60s and early 70s. Getting front row tickets to see Mick and the boys in 1978 is still the fondest musical memory of my life.
Both my daughters are musical, but my older daughter Hannah, who's now 18, doesn't just play music, she also writes it. She has been writing songs since she was 13, and had began singing and playing guitar even before that. Her sound has been compared to Suzanne Vega and Natalie Merchant, or at least what those women might have sounded like when they were just getting started. If you want to hear some of Hannah's songs, click on the links below and follow the directions there.
I enjoy listening to Hannah's music so much that I never miss it when she's performing at a local venue and a couple of years ago agreed to bankroll her in making a CD of original music. That CD, called "Last Lights on in Town," was nominated for a Washington Area Music Award, and one of its songs "In Touch," received an honorable mention in the Mid-Atlantic Songwriters Contest.
On March 5, 2009, Hannah had kicked off the release of her second CD, "Exhale Your Blues," with a show in College Park, Maryland. Exhale Your Blues shows a degree of maturity in both Hannah's songwriting and vocals. While I am admittedly biased, I don't think there's a weak song on the CD. Anyone who buys it will be in for a treat.
The CDs are available for non-Washingtonians at cdbaby.com/cd/hannahspiro. Also, feel free to go to Hannah's website, www.hannahspiro.com, and read her bio, listen to some of her songs, and check out the calendar of her upcoming appearances.
Minerva's Touch Records is the name that I came up with as the label for Hannah's music. "Minerva" is the Roman goddess of wisdom and war, and I find that particular combination to be especially intriguing in today's world. Think about it -- with the possible exception of eradicating world poverty and global warning, is there a domain in which wisdom is more necessary than in choosing which wars to fight and which ones to avoid? In fact, even if we all can agree that a war is just, do we not need plenty of wisdom to determine how to fight it? Such wisdom seems to be in short supply. Perhaps we should be spending more time thinking about Minerva and hoping that we can be touched by her muse.
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