Riversong - Paperback

by Lee Underwood (Author)

INTRODUCTION

Nearly all of the poems included in Riversong are new.

They are expressions of personal love, transcendental

realization, and my deep involvement with nature and music.

STREAM. . .RIVER. . .FLOW, that starts off the FOREVER

SONGS Section, for example, is a journey from youth's first

realization of the power of music, when as a nine-year-old

boy, lying in bed, I held a plastic radio up to my ear, listening

to "The Grand Ol' Opry," and heard for the first time the

magical guitar of Chet Atkins. I had never heard anything

remotely like what he was doing with his music. I was transported

into the first heaven I had ever known.

That musical experience awakened me to the realization

that life itself is a stream, a river, an eternal flowng that

forever surrounds us and infuses us and carries us through

waves of music, which only sometimes do we become aware

of. Life is a RIVERSONG filled with light, fire, and beauty.

Life itself is that RIVERSONG.

As my life streamed on, other adventures appeared

to me in that music flow - such as running away from

home in Big Spring west Texas as a 14-year-old boy, hitchhiking

to Memphis, stealing a row boat, and sailing down

the Mississippi River.

That journey was the first of many adventures that

river-streamed through my life, including learning how to

drink beer as a college student, how to make love, and, later

on, how to play guitar, which hearkened me back to the music

of Chet Atkins. STREAM. . .RIVER. . .FLOW also includes

a mini-biography of my journey as the lead guitarist with a

"wild-haired singer" (which some readers will recognize as

Tim Buckley.)