Lynda Johnson singer/songwriter
SwanSeaMusic Website	Lynda Johnson Photo: Lynda Johnson/Swansea Music

I have been writing stories and songs for as long as I can remember, and began singing with my family at a very young age. We formed a band called "Skye", which performed all around the Northwest for 11 years, and toured with a record company for some of that time, after recording a collection of my Celtic/World compositions.

I formed Swansea Music in 1993, so that I could spend more time with my young family. I have found that I love the solitude and freedom of having my own studio, a quiet place to work and listen for the music as it comes to me.

I wrote the songs on the album "Will You Remember" for Chatterbox, Inc., for the Memories and Journaling industry. It was produced by Clive Romney, and the Celtic instruments were played by his talented friends. The songs are all about memories and our connections with the people we love. The vocal and instrumental arrangements for that project are all very complex.

My next album, "Alluvionne", will be released very soon. It is a departure from the music I have recorded before. The music is very much from the heart, ideas captured "from the air", as I heard one writer say. A lot of thought and emotion has gone into these compositions, which are a bit simpler and more stark. I want every feeling and note to come through and shine with the meaning that it is meant to have.

Each song has a story, a fairytale, that goes along with it. These stories were inspired by the Northwestern United States...the oceans, misty mountains, untamed rivers, swans and wild geese and wolves, and the endless sea of blue sky; the mystical feeling one gets when traveling through this beautiful place that is my home.

Marja Lee Krujt, a gifted fantasy artist from England, painted the cover of "Alluvionne" for me. I looked for over a year for the perfect artist, one whose work would touch me the way music can, and one day I came upon Marja's paintings in a book. Marja is also a harpist, and lives in a talented community of artists including Brian Froud and Alan Lee (she was married and raised a family with him, and they also have a talented daughter who is an artist, Virginia Lee).

Marja is drawing some illustrations for the book of stories, including Sharlie, a legendary sea serpent who lives in Payette Lake near McCall, Idaho, just north of here. It is truly one of the most beautiful places in the world. As a child I walked on the shores of the lake hoping to see Sharlie, wishing she would trust me enough to show herself to me and give me a ride on her back.

I am also releasing a collection of music that is more complex, more similar to the "Will You Remember" and "Skye" albums. Clive helped with some of those songs. They were inspired by my own stories, and by the works of other artists; the painting "Night With Her Train of Stars", a poem by nineteenth century poet Christina Rossetti, another painting by Marja Lee Krujt, and more.

Moonbeam River
(Lynda Johnson)
2006-01-06
Instruments and vocals by Lynda Johnson - unmastered mix by Scott Pergande

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This is one of the songs in the "Alluvionne" trilogy, the first of which will be released this spring. There are three albums of songs, and each song has an accompanying story, a sort of fairy tale for grown-ups. I got the idea for this song as I was sitting on the beach in Donnelly, Idaho, watching the moon rise. The reflection made a river of silver all the way across the water, from the mountain across the lake to where I was sitting. I had just been reading about the moon, about old beliefs in which all things wasted on earth (treasures, unfulfilled dreams, unrequited love, worry, jealousy, time) were stored on the moon in earthen jars. In this song I imagined wrapping my own cares in a linen shroud, and laying them on the shore. I build a fire and wait, until a ghost ship of white bearing Omesa, guardian of the moon's treasures, carries her to the river of light across the water, and she gathers up all the treasures there, and takes them away to the moon.

I wrapped my cares in linen
and I laid them on the shore
and rowed across
the silvery light
a moonbeam river oh
and on the other side
I made a fire
against the cold
and waited in the darkness
for the mystery to unfold

The wind began its whispering
a wildish lullaby
the song
though silent in me
with the moonlight
filled the sky
the waves began to murmur
and they gently
touched the shore
beckoning me
to dwell within
the mystery once more

And sorrow
overpowering in
the glaring light of day
in the softness of
a Moonbeam River
slowly flowed away

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