Review by H.V. Cramond for Feminist Review, March 28, 2010

As the title of this album suggests, Beyond Living is a collection of folk songs about death, many of them written by musicians who have passed. Alicia Bay Laurel, known for her 1971 guide to sustainable living entitled Living On Earth, collected and recorded many of the songs on this album in response to a number of deaths she encountered in recent years, including, most notably, legendary Japanese singer-songwriter Takashi Donto Kudomi, who died in 2001 at a hula performance. Songs from artists from several countries round out this decidedly international album.

While the album’s theme might suggest darkness, the album feels more like a celebration. As Laurel’s liner notes suggest “lyrics about death contain valuable instructions for living,” and these songs are no exception. Their cheery melodies, vocals, and a fingerpicked guitar mix with deep sadness in the manner I associate with children’s songs (Remember when you found out “Ring-Around-the-Rosie” was about The Plague?) The album invites the listener to engage with the certainty of death and to feel the relish that reality brings to living. Much like listening to the blues, listening to these songs provides a deep and pleasurable access to human emotion.

Review by Joe Dolce in his weekly newsletter, sent 09-25-09:

What I’m Listening to This Week
‘Beyond Living’ – Alicia Bay Laurel. This is the most recent release of my friend, Alicia Bay Laurel, who Lin Van Hek and I will be performing with in Okinawa and Tokyo next month. Alicia is one of the few real visionary freaked-out flower children from the 70s who has grown even further into the great dream of the Beloved Community that we all shared back then. She also had a Number One hit, so to speak, in her 20s, with a New York Times best-selling book, Living on the Earth, which changed her life, and it is an inspiration to know someone who continues to reinvent herself – without disowning her past.

Alicia and I were also both close to, and sang with, the girl who introduced me to California hippy communes back in the 70s, Janet ‘Sunny’ Supplee, and the spirit of Sunny hovers throughout this recording. Sometimes, listening to Alicia sing, I swear Sunny is in the building. Sunny and I sang together for a couple of years and she certainly influenced me in an unforgettable way. She was killed in a car crash in Maui and I still miss her.

Beyond Living collects a master’s bouquet of beautiful songs about Death that do not drag death down into the valley of shadow and fear where old time religion would like to keep it penned up, but releases it out into the empowering light and flight of warm meadows and possibilities. Alicia has included the song I wrote and sang at my own father’s funeral, Hill of Death, with lyrics by Australian femi-pioneer, Louisa Lawson, drunken Henry’s mum.

While in LA, I was lucky enough to be able to sing and play with her on this recording. I was surprised at first when the tasty, awesome, I-am-the-Fingers-of-God mandolin part I had recorded was nowhere to be found in the final mix, but after a couple of listens, I understood why it went to the cutting room floor (along with Satan, Everlasting Hell and the Edsel.) It’s not necessary. Alicia’s last album, What Living’s All About, was an eclectic brew of styles, electric guitar solos, even rap – but this one, a unique fusion of Hawaiian and Japanese sensibility, is smoothly unified by the continuity of Alicia’s lullaby-like singing and precision finger-picking guitar, the latter most notably in the fifteen minute closing instrumental, Ruminations, which is a collage of no less than fifteen tunes: Amazing Grace, The Garden, Is This Not the Land of Beulah, Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Oh Come Angel Band, Gathering Flowers for the Master’s Bouquet, Angels Are Watching Over Me, This Little Light of Mine, Swing Low Sweet Chariot, Bosan Gokko, Hill of Death, Long Black Veil, Good Night Irene, We Shall All Be Reunited, and Kumbaya – and leading to the final Hawaiian, Aloha Oe’. I wouldn’t mind at all having these fifteen minutes playing in my final hour.

There are also three tracks written by Takashi Donto Kudomi, a legendary Japanese new wave rock star turned spiritual singer/songwriter, who died mysteriously on January 23, 2001. He, his wife and their two young sons were watching a hula performance dedicated to Pele, the volcano goddess, at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. At the end of the final chant, Donto fell to the ground unconscious, and was rushed to the hospital. The next day he was pronounced dead at age 37 from a brain aneurism. He had been in perfect health until that day. We will be staying and singing with Donto’s widow, Sachiho, in Okinawa, at Donto-in, the temple Sachiho built in his honor.

One of my favourite tracks is the quirky Altid Frejdig Naar du Gaar (Courage Always When You Walk) with melody by C.E.F. Weyse, 1838, lyrics: Christian Richardt, 1867, set into verse by Alicia. It is often sung at funerals in Denmark and is faithfully sung here in Danish. Just voice and stand-up bass, played masterfully by Chris Conner and reminiscent of her great version of Nature Boy, on What Living’s All About, the vocal seems to float in and out of ordinary tonality like a ghostly dandelion puff. One day, I do hope Alicia gets a chance to put out an album of just vocal and stand-up bass recordings, as they are always a pleasure, and a challenge, to listen to.

Review by Gerald Van Waes, host of "Psyche Van Het Folk" (a psychedelic folk radio show in Antwerp, Belgium) on his website, November 20, 2009

Alicia Bay Laurel : Beyond Living (US, 2009)

A bit different from Alicia’s previous albums, this is a conceptual piece of songs to be meant as a tuning in to a spiritual good vibration and feeling, on moments when people have passed over. When Alicia suddenly saw many related and befriended people pass over, it seemed as if she had no other option but to give all this an accompanying meaning; she started to collect songs from different countries to express this.

It starts strongly, with a Hawaiian opening chant which leads to a song inspiration, as a special moment (or person) to remember. The second song is an Australian folk gospel song, a folk version in which the backing vocals gives an Americana gospel feeling. Next we hear a traditional Japanese song, accompanied by harmonium and congas and vocals. Also this one has gospel flavours, reminiscent a bit of ‘Amazing grace’, being a more delicate, religious almost Christmas-sphere sphere. After its vocal parts with high voices (in Japanese), there’s some spoken word by Alicia giving more reference in the song. “Waltzing with Angels” sounds more like a country children song with a Hawaiian effect on the way the mandolin is played, with a happy feeling or energy. The song with original Danish lyrics by Christian Richardt (1867) is sung with a Marilyn Monroe song voice, and accompanied with bass only.

“The Garden” is again more countryesque, is sung with nice dual voices, leaving a Hawaiian feeling.  “Auntie Nona” sounds like a happy children's song, old music. The next small song has more religious Christian lyrics which appeal less to me. Also here gospel and country-flavours are mixed nicely. “Nami” turns back to Japan but leaves traces of Hawaii. On “Ruminations” we finally return to the “Amazing Grace” song, turning after a short while into a slow Hawaiian guitar medley on acoustic guitar. Also the last instrumental is a guitar piece with references to Hawaiian melodies.

Except as a dedication to the subject, the album is as much a dedication to spheres provoked from Hawaiian songs and music, to spirituality in gospel music, as quietly privately experienced music, and the fresh kindness of children songs, and a touch of country. All of this is omnipresent throughout with a happy inner strength and positivism towards life and thankfulness to people and their lives.

Hi Alicia,

The interview is finished and runs about 63 minutes and features 5 live in-the-studio-songs (Hang Out & Breathe, Pain & Love, Love Understanding & Peace, Auntie Nona, and Doctor Sun & Nurse Water) and the rest from your new CD.

I did want to let you know we are now playing Aloha ‘Oe, Hill Of Death & The Garden in our regular new music rotation.

Once again the interview runs Wednesday May 5th at 10am on my show and then an encore airing on Friday, May 7th at 6pm.

Thank you and I hope you’re doing well!

Andy Olson
Owner/Operator/Radio Personality
Radio Free Phoenix

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GODDESS SISTER ALICIA☆
I want to send a mail just now!
What a perfect timing!
I listened your new CD! So beautiful. I cried…...
I can feel your love and respect for Donto.
Now I am looking for Japanese distributor.
Tonight full moon is so beautiful and shining like you!
THANK YOU ALICIA!
SEND BIG LOVE TO YOU☆
Sachiho Kudomi
Singer/songwriter/bassist/harpist
Leader of the all-woman trance band Amana
Festival organizer
In the 1980’s, leader of Japan’s first all-girl punk band, Zelda
Naha, Okinawa, Japan

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 I love Beyond Living! Very strong album though it sound extremely gentle!
Especially I like Nami and Hang Out and Breathe. It is surprisingly true that an artist have created her essential song in early days and gives it evolution.
Love, Setsuko
Setsuko Miura
television producer specializing in documentaries on the environment
Fujino, Japan

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Got the CD, loving it, thanks!!!

Albert Bates
Director
Ecovillage Training Center
The Farm, Summertown, Tennessee

_____________

Thank you for bringing the most wonderful people to us here at Hopi. I enjoyed teaching them of our way of life and I pray for you all  among the stars. Thank you for the C-D that I received. I listen to it in the evening gazing among the skies.  Thank you and keep in contact.

Dawahongnewa
Hopi Elder
Shungopavi Village, Arizona

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

FROM HIROMI KONDO, percussionist with Amana [band], and other bands
Konnichiwa! Arigato your new CD. So beautiful!
A lot of LOVE ^_` Hiromi
Nanjo, Okinawa, Japan

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Aloha e Alicia,

I wasn’t even going to fire up the computer tonight, but I received the CD, I just wanted to say pretty awesome and what an honor. Donto is whirling in the realm of Po. Aloha!
ke aloha wale, ka mahalo wale,
kapo
Ried Kapo Ku
Singer/songwriter
Performer of traditional Hawaiian dance and chant
Vice President, Na Manupo Music
Torrance, California

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Thank you for “beyond life”! Your beautiful songs appreciating life and the beyond bring peace to my mind.
Kenichi Iyanaga
professor of mathematics
Ranzan, Saitama, Japan

———————-
And thanks for your new album.
I feel your voice is younger than last coming and guitar play is more beautiful!
I understand I love your world all over again!
Koki Aso
magazine journalist specializing in outdoor living
Hayama, Japan

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How WONDERFUL!
We’re listening to it over & over.
Really love the way The Garden came out!
Also the beautiful slack key medley at the end.
Your BEST effort yet! Really nice.
Ellie LOVES the Nona Beamer song.
Looking UP,

Steve McGee
Singer/songwriter/guitarist/artist/boat captain
Wailuku, Maui, Hawaii

——————

Hi Alicia,
I’m listening to your new CD.
From the opening this CD is unique. Here’s a new experience of Nami. Joe Dolce and Amana…
I think I want start to sell this CDs soon. I’m gonna play this CD almost everyday in Yukotopia.
Oh, Nami again, and peaceful instrumentals at last. This is a nice album.
Roku
Vocalist/guitarist/leader of the band HaZaMa
Manager of Yukotopia night club
Tokyo, Japan

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Alicia starts out with Hawaiian songs & then it seamlessly segues into a Japanese song & it was all ocean sounds somehow. Very beautiful. There’s an old Danish song (lovely) & the Danes are also ocean people. If you haven’t heard it yet, I recommend you get it.
Pam Hanna
Journalist and Political Writer
New Mexico

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It’s so beautiful CD. My tears came. So moved. Arigato so much.
Satomi Yanagisawa
Jewelry maker and Craftsperson
Karuizawa, Nagano, Japan

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I was particularly blown away by the 15-minute instrumental ending and the ingenious way you integrated ‘Hill of Death’ instrumentally into the timelessness of those classics. I have never thought of the song as just music before but it works like that!
I also like how the common thread of all the songs is your finger-picking style which really stands on its own.
I’ve always thought that ‘Hill of Death’ felt like it could have come from the hills of 19th century Appalachia but you are only the second person to pick that up and the first to actually demonstrate it via that instrumental collage!
Joe Dolce
Singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist
Melbourne, Australia

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I love the CD!!!!!!!!!!!!! Everything from the Bosan Gokko to Auntie Nona and Ruminations. And what a nice surprise to see the photograph from Forest Hills. You are such a visionary…all I did was snap the shutter.

It works because it is so authentic…so thoroughly full of the heart and soul of YOU – and a true reflection of your bittersweet and tender feelings after so many loved ones passed on. I love that you are so inclusive in the explanations of your relationship to each song, lyric, and tradition. Your sound and FEEL puts down a deep tap root. Then the icing on the cake is your artistic nature-centric metaphor using the morning/mourning glory blossom to show the glowing light at the end of the physical life leading the way to the next adventure. And of course the piece de resistance is that you drew the blossoms and wrote the words in your own handwriting – enveloping the recording project with your SELF. Love it all. The whole shebang.

Ruthie Ristich
Jazz Vocalist
Boston, Massachusetts

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As soon as I got it, my mother and I listened to your CD and we love it!!!  And when my family held a BBQ party at a tiny garden, we enjoyed your music again.

Takako Minobe
Translator
Wakayama, Japan

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I have listened to your studio songs today (all 4 CD's that I am aware of). "Beyond Living" is my favorite. Your playing and singing are impeccable. I think it's quite possibly one of the greatest views on life I have ever witnessed.

Ricky Moore
Musician
Iowa

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Alicia, in my view this is your best recording yet!  The songs are so movingly beautiful, no matter which culture they are from.  Donto's pieces are just beautiful.  Your performance is great.  The production is superb!  You have done amazing things with supporting voices and instrumentation.  You should be very very proud of yourself.  And I was very touched at your including Peter in the liner notes.  I think you have succeeded at reaching "Beyond Living" to a glorious and amazing place.

Linda Kane
Photographer and Filmmaker
Honomu, Hawaii

----------------------

The CD is beautiful, eclectic and extremely well produced.
It is appropriately other-worldly.
Nami keeps going though my head like a continuous wave. I LOVE the Donto tracks and the Donto memories.
Hill of Death sounds fresh and the medley is masterful.
The Danish piece is a treasure and a revelation.
Your guitar and vocals are so beautiful and they blend perfectly with the accompanist’s parts.
And you know me…I love good liner notes and you have written the BEST ones.
I’m one of those people that like “The Making Of…” even better than the movie, so good liner notes are a necessity.
This is a totally unique collection of authentic and personal music.
I feel like I peered into the pages of your “musical diary”.
I love the Hawaiian/Japanese flavor of it all.
Rock ON my courageous ONE!
Love,
Wildflower Revolution
Artist and Environmental Activist
Graton, California

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Your new album has offered much consolation as Brandon and I mourn a good friend, a talented and spirited fiddle player. Your tunes fit so perfectly into my soul at the moment ~ THANK YOU. I would LOVE to plan a show together. I will put some feelers out.

Much love,
Gwendolyn
Singer/songwriter/guitarist
Los Angeles, California

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What I’m Listening to This Week 11-05-09
Beyond Living – by Alicia Bay Laurel. Having just done three concerts with Alicia in Japan and Okinawa, these tunes are still floating through my head. A very unique artist and ahead of her time writer.

Joe Dolce
Singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist
Melbourne, Australia

---------------------------------

I love your CD, such a wide collection of inspiration ~ today’s favorite – Hang Out & Breathe. My husband and I lived and worked in and around the Findhorn Foundation in Scotland for the last 10+ years. After he died last year I was guided to move over to Arizona, reconnect with the Earth and continue my work here. It is a blessing to have connected with you.

Jewels Hayden
Anam Áire ~ Soul Midwife

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i LOVE the CD …D’s :) Beyond Living!
thank you for taking so much care in signing them so beautifully…its so lovely, A…really ! GOOD JOB!

Vilma Lihau Daly

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The CD is beautiful!  It brought me so much joy - I've already listened to it twice through.  It's really a treasure!  Thank you for making so much beautiful music with so much heart.

Lytton Dove White
Environmentalist and Writer

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I absolutely love your music.  The CDs are great, and now I have three of your special CDs.

Audrey Linden
Actress, Comedienne, and Teacher of Comedy Improv
Bevery Hills, CA

---------------------------------------------

Aloha Dearest Alicia,

This is a mahalo to your from both Bruce and myself for the beautiful gift of your CD [Beyond Living]. We listened to it together as we commuted back and forth to Kapalua weddings – and we found it delightful. Bruce commented on how beautifully produced it is…A most wonderful collection of songs!

Rev. Kolleen O’Flaherty Wheeler
All Ways Maui’d Weddings and Ceremonies
Bruce Wheeler
Seventh Wave Photographics

December 12, 2008

“Floozy Tune,” the opening cut of my blues/jazz CD, What Living’s All About, has garnered a runner-up position in yet a THIRD songwriting contest, this time as a Finalist in the 100% Music Songwriting Contest.

In summer 2008, “Floozy Tune” received Honorable Mention (7th place) in the World division (which includes jazz), in the Indie International Songwriting Contest. Here’s their profile page on me.

The first award for “Floozy Tune” was in the Top 20 Finalists in the Jazz Division of the Unisong International Songwriting Contest, in 2007.

August 5, 2008
Today “Floozy Tune,” the opening cut on my 3rd CD, What Living’s All About, has placed in yet a SECOND international songwriting contest, as Honorable Mention (7th place) in the World division (which includes jazz), in the Indie International Songwriting Contest. Here’s their profile page on me.

The first award for “Floozy Tune” was in the Top 20 Finalists in the Jazz Division of the Unisong International Songwriting Contest, in 2007.

Review by Gerald Van Waes, radio producer and webmaster for radio show “PVHF”(Psyche Van Het Folk), Radio Centraal, Antwerp, Belgium
November 2005

Alicia started to live and breathe the essences of the island of Hawaii with its own special ‘heart’ energy. Like she expressed the hippie life book and album, this album expresses original and historic Hawaiian songs, accompanied by a slack key guitar with the help of Lei’ohu Ryder, singer and spiritualist with roots in Hawaiian culture, Sam Ahia, vocalist and jazz guitarist and Rick Asher Keefer, with some ukulele and percussion and vocals. Different from the previous album that seemed to have been an expression of immediate life energy, here a few song experiences have a kind of nostalgic souljazz in them even as if something is lost but still remembered. Elsewhere I feel sadness as if being an ode to the original Hawaiian joyful soul, while the historical songs are the immediate reference, while guitar instrumentals like “Sassy / Manuela Boy / Livin’ On Easy” are performed with a blues feeling. Other tracks, like the titletrack have all the luck and sunshine of Hawaii most brightly in them.

Review by Chris Roth
Editor, Talking Leaves Magazine
Spring, 2002

Our friend Alicia Bay Laurel (author and illustrator of the 1971 bestselling book
Living On The Earth) has put together an album of original and historic
Hawai’ian songs, sung with slack key guitar. After more than twenty-five years
living in Hawai’i, Alicia has obviously absorbed much of the spirit of her adopted
home—a spirit she conveys with great respect and also an effervescent joy. Most
of this is lovely music about what’s good in life on an island where native culture
and nature are still respected and honored by such “adopted natives” as Alicia.
Just as important, several songs point to the threats and damage to Hawai’i’s
people and land done by less-respectful outsiders, and a call, gently and
beautifully, for a return to balance and sovereignty.

Review by Stanton Swihart
for www.allmusic.com
September 23, 2001

It took Alicia Bay Laurel nearly half of a lifetime and years of concerted study
in a variety of styles before completing her debut album, but, oh, was it worth
the wait. A gorgeous amalgam of John Fahey-style fingerpicking, modal passages,
and lovingly sacred sentiments, Music from Living on the Earth was a sparkling
stream of music pure from the heart. It took but mere months for Laurel to back
up those sentiments with a second album that is every bit as compelling and
beautifully realized, although it is considerably different in both tone and
purpose. Living in Hawai’i Style is instead a collection of Hawaiian songs – some traditional, some native and, indeed, some from the pen of Laurel herself,
a longtime resident of the 50th state. Although a few have (most notably jazz
guitarist George Benson), ha’oles (or “gringos”) have not traditionally been
accepted with ease into the wider Hawaiian musical community. But Laurel proves
herself acutely in-tuned to the nuances, subtleties, and details of traditional
island styles, and the gorgeous open-key melodies or her original tunes are
tailor-made to Hawaii’s deep legacy of slack-key guitar. Without debating the
notion of authenticity, it can be said, at the very least, that Living is a
supremely humble and giving album, both towards the listener and towards the
Hawaiian musical history that it upholds and extends. That it goes well beyond
is the album’s most endearing grace. Far from playing shallow and dilettantish,
Living is, in fact, a paradisiacal love letter to Hawaii’s musical lore and to
the place the artist calls home, and it could not honor the tradition any more
than it does. Laurel studied Hawaiian musical culture for more than two decades
before even attempting to put her learning on tape (although some of the
original songs date to the mid 1970s), and the album benefits greatly from that
level of sensitivity and deference, as it incorporates nearly every style
endemic to the islands, from ancient chant and drinking songs to a birthday
tune, wedding songs, wonderfully breezy hulas, environmental anthems and songs
of welcome. With ample help from the widely respected Hawaiian jazz-guitar great
Sam Ahia and ravishing vocal support from spiritualist, composer, and educator
Lei’ohu Ryder, Living in Hawai’i Style is every bit the blissful oasis that
Hawaii often seems itself.

Review on Amazon.com by Pam Hanna
November 21, 2001

O Hawai’i!

In her first CD, Alicia Bay Laurel wrote and performed all of the songs, and it was a wonderful musical tour de force. On “Living in Hawaii Style,” other performers, writers and musicians make an appearance to excellent advantage. Alicia’s liner notes are a virtual musical primer on Hawaii – its musical history, genres, culture, geography, flora and fauna, as well as some magical personal history on how she came to know these people and places and enter into their music and their lives.

Traditional Hawaiian songs are included here (Nanakuli, from the 1890’s) as well as steel and nylon string guitars in standard and open tunings (known as Ki ho’alu or slack key) and “hapa ha’ole” (meaning half-foreign, one of a genre of swing tunes with tropical lyrics) as in “Moonlight and Shadows” with the smooth-voiced Sam Ahia.

Koa ukeleles, an ipu (gourd drum), pu’ili (bamboo rattles), pu (large conch shell used as a wind instrument), ti leaf rattles, slack key, steel and nylon string guitars, and ki ho’alu (open-tuned guitar, Hawai’ian style) are heard. Several songs, such as “Kawailehua’a’alakahonua” and “Holua, Kapalaoa and Paliku,” are sung in Hawaiian. The second of these is introduced with an original chant in the ancient style created and sung by Lei’ohu Ryder. The liner notes define Hawaiian words such as “Waikaloa” – “fresh water that is endless,” “A’a” a sharp, jagged lava and “Laupaho’eho’e” a smooth, ropy lava.”

One of my favorites is written and performed by Alicia alone (harmonizing with herself), “Ukulele Hula” – a lilting sing-along kind of song that embodies the feeling and spirit of Hawai’i. Has the feel of a years-old traditional song. “In Paradise, everybody is a lover.” Balmy, swaying breezy, rolling, it’s a “breezy afternoon and a sunset on the ocean.”

But the song that tugs most at the heart, for me, is “Kanikau, O Hawai’i!”, written by Ginni Clemmons and sung by Lei’ahu Ryder and Alicia. “Kanikau” means “a mournful cry.”

“Oh Hawai’i, you’ve lost your innocence/ How can we get it back?/ Have we claimed you? Have we shamed you?/Have we spoiled the prize we’ve won?/ By taking you against your will,/Like all greedy lovers do./ Oh Hawai’i… we’re sorry/ Those who care are crying tears of shame./ ….Teach us the ways of nature,/ So that peace can end this war. Oh Hawai’i.”/
Lilting, haunting and lovely, the melody opens the heart to Hawai’I as she is, as she was.

This CD is pure pleasure. Just listen!

Review on Aloha Plenty Hawaii
by Doug and Sandy McMaster
September 28, 2001

“Any woman who has a great deal to offer the world is in trouble.” ~ Hazel Scott ~

In 1970, she wrote Living On Earth which hit the bestseller
list in 1971. She published 8 more books during the 70’s
and moved to Maui. Last year she released a CD entitled
“Music From Living On the Earth” including 16 songs she had
written at the time of the first publication.
Living on Maui and visiting the other islands, Alicia was
influenced by the musical stylings of Hawaii. She learned
traditional and contemporary songs as well as writing her
own. Spring of 2001 took her to the Big Island and into
the recording studio once again to create “Living in Hawaii
Style”. On this recording she’s joined by the Hawaiian
jazz guitarist Sam Ahia, spiritualist Lei’ohu Ryder, Rick
Asher Keefer. The recording includes several of her
originals as well as contemporary and jazz favorites.
It includes slack and standard guitar, ukulele, chants, ipu
(gourd), ukulele, and more.

It’s good to hear more women playing slack key… hence the
quote I included in this issue. Having spent time in Hana
on Maui we understand Alicia’s sentiments. A magical place
with very special people. Her folk/pop renditions are nice
and catchy. Alicia will be touring in support of her CD so
watch for her coming your way… she has some great stories
from her time on Maui. We met Alicia and her friend Joe at
sunset by the bay.* Hope to see you there again soon Alicia!
And hope life is good for you on Big Island.

*Doug and Sandy are often found performing slack key guitar and ukulele duets at sunset at one of the beachparks in Hanalei, Kaua’i. Their music is beautiful! Their CDs are available at their web site (address above), which is a wonderful resource on ki hoalu (slack key guitar). ~ABL

Review in Newsgroups: alt.music.hawaiian
A new CD by Alicia Bay Laurel… some slack key, some jazz, some vintage
Hawaiian… beautiful songs honoring her teacher and places on Maui that
touched her heart. And a happy birthday, Hawaiian style, song too!

Letters

From Judy Barrett, former music industry professional in Honolulu, August 1, 2002:

I asked Led [slack key legend Ledward Ka’apana] to keep an eye out for you at the Hilo festival [the Big Island Slack Key Guitar Festival]. “She one haole girl? Kinda hippie?” Yeah, that sounds about right, I said. Turned out he’d already met you at one of his workshops in Hilo a few months ago. Said you played some of your compositions for him. I asked, “So?” He said you were pretty good. Now, I know that sounds pretty dang low key, but, from him, it truly is high praise. Enjoy it!

Sounds like you had a great time. I love that little festival!

ALOHA!
Judy

September 4, 2001

Mahalo Alicia,

We just reviewed your charming release “Living In Hawai’i Style”. It is
refreshing to know there are still some artists performing and recording in
the islands who appreciate our magnificent musical roots.

You original compositions offer a compelling story of what is happening to
beloved Hawai’i. Usually, most artists only record their complaints, not
solutions. You are the difference. Even though you are not native to the
islands, you have the feel of the land and people.

When I was involved with the original “Hawai’i Calls” radio program, and
the newer version I always looked forward the most to the more traditional
and hapa-haole numbers.

This is a most enjoyable musical experience.

Aloha nui loa,
J Hal Hodgson
Executive Producer
Ports of Paradise

September 12, 2001

Aloha Alicia~

I am delighted to have shared in your CD project. The songs are clearly from your heart. You are a gift to our islands. The makana who has been called to service the vision of aloha and maluhia for the world.

Congratulations on such a fine job. May you continue to heal the people in your work.

Malama pono~

Lei’ohu Ryder

“What a nice recording. You did a very good job.”

January 21, 2002

Auntie Nona Beamer
Composer/Musician/Educator
Mother of Keola and Kapono Beamer
And Hawaiian Music Legend in Her Own Right

"I've been listening to your Hawaiian album.  I love it.  Every single song!  I hardly ever listen to other people's music because my brain is just so full of my own.  Right now I'm listening to Track 3.  I love your voice; it's so perfect, so lovely and sensual!"

June 28, 2011

Gabrielle Silva
Jazz vocalist and visual artist
Creator of the Ragananda doll, books and videos

PERFORMING SONGWRITER MAGAZINE, MAY 2007

What Living’s All About—a title that’s appropriate for a woman who has lived her life with such gusto. A Bohemian artist, Alicia Bay Laurel lived on a houseboat off Sausalito and a commune in Sonoma before spending 25 years on Maui. In addition to her music, she’s worked as a cook, collage artist, yoga instructor, wedding planner, underwater photographer and she’s the author of a New York Times bestseller, the whimsical Living on the Earth, first published in 1971.

The rich tapestry of her life translates to her music. In the Billie Holiday-esque “Floozy Tune,” Laurel plays the role of the Sunday School teacher turned barfly. In “America the Blues” she dishes out scathing political commentary to the tune of “America the Beautiful” (“America, America, greed sheds disgrace on thee / You don’t need nukes, you don’t need slaves, you don’t need gasoline”). She has fun with the smart “Aquarian Age Liberated Woman Blues” (“Seaweed for breakfast is good for you”) and the gospel-imbued “Doctor Sun and Nurse Water.” Laurel’s jazzy Earth-mother sound will seduce and inspire.

 
Review by John Stevenson of Ejazz News in London, June 2006

Dear Alicia,

Just a quick note from London. I have reviewed your last CD at ejazznews.com. It is excellent. As I wrote in the review, by far one of the best for 2006.

I get close to 200 CDs a week sent to me, but yours stood out because of its transparently high level of musicianship and sincerity - qualities which are very rarely found combined these days.

Kind Regards,

John Stevenson

Alicia Bay Laurel: What Living’s All About, Jazz Blues & Other Moist Situations (IWS)

With a provocative title like this one, Ms. Laurel will certainly catch the attention of any reviewer! This is most certainly one of the most audacious, heartfelt and honest discs I’ve put in my CD player for the year. Alicia (who sounds like the artistic love child of Joan Baez and Tom Waits) brings a folk-singer’s sensibility to bear on jazz and pulls no punches: On America The Blues, she declaims: America, the beautiful/you’re thorny as a rose:/Radiation, global warming/Poisoned food from GMOs./ She also sings a delightful version of Eden Ahbez’s Nature Boy. The accompaniment from guitarist Nels Cline, bass player John B. Williams and pianist Rick Olson is divine.

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BLUES REVUE MAGAZINE January 2008
Tom Hyslop
Blues Bites: Reviews in Brief

Alicia Bay Laurel conveys life’s sudden shifts and jarring juxtapositions on What Living’s All About (Indigo With Stars 003). Sandwiched between the opener, “Floozy Tune,” and “Aquarian Age Liberated Woman Blues,” two formally classic blues that could have come from Ma Rainey if not for the namechecks (belly dancing, astral projection, The I. Ching, bee pollen candy and natty dread), comes “America the Blues,” with strident references to economic inequality, environmental rapine, corporate greed, and political corruption. Laurel moves from girlish singing on the Twenties-style songs to this doomy incantation, the arrangement taking full advantage of the jaw-dropping talent of avant-guitarist Nels Cline (best known as Wilco’s secret weapon). With cuts such as “Doctor Sun and Nurse Water” (a gospel-drenched number with oddly matched lyrics), and the Fever tribute of the title track, Living will strike some as too California in its outlook. But lovely touches abound, such as the stately, quietly anthemic “Love, Understanding and Peace,” and Doug Webb’s beautiful alto work on “Zero Gravity.”

FEMINIST REVIEW, Friday, June 1, 2007
Alicia Bay Laurel – What Living’s All About

Alicia Bay Laurel wrote Living on the Earth, a cult classic and the first paperback on the New York Times Bestseller List (spring 1971), which has sold over 350,000 copies. She has also written five other books. Laurel is a talented, trained musician. She grew up playing classical piano, switched to guitar in her teens and learned open tunings from legendary guitarist John Fahey, a family member. On this latest album, What Living’s All About, she works with some of the best musicians in the field, including avant garde guitar hero Nels Cline.

“Zero Gravity” is a haunting song about a city at night, reminiscent of Ground Zero in New York City where the Twin Towers used to be. Laurel talks about sex in this CD and does it with class, sometimes with gentle humor, like “Floozy Tune.” However, you won’t know what she’s talking about unless you listen closely. This blend of jazz, blues and gospel is a powerful feminist statement. It’s fantastic!

Review by Patricia Ethelwyn Lang

"Floozy Tune" Wins Song Contest
7/9/2007 4:38:10 PM
“Floozy Tune”
Status: Selected
Congratulations, you have been selected as a Top 20 Finalist in the Jazz Category of the 11th Annual Unisong International Song contest. Results are at http://www.unisong.com/Winners11.aspx.

This year featured the highest overall quality of songs, lyrics, and writers ever submitted by far, with the most diverse and varied entries from a multitude of countries representing every continent on Earth except Antarctica (and songwriting penguins out there).

The judging therefore was extremely competitive and to be singled out anywhere in the top 15% of all songs submitted was no easy feat.

Review of What Living’s All About by psychedelic folk radio DJ, Gerald Van Waes. His show, Psyche Van Het Folk, is on Radio Centraal, Antwerp, Belgium.

Like one of my favourite heartfelt singer-songwriter singers (Heather McLeod with 'Funny Thing', 1997), also Alicia went to more towards (slightly standard) jazz territories, but as a former hippie, it is clear this is not done as a compromise to please/tease a public. Her interpretations (-most songs are self penned-) are with great feelings, and a certain light happiness beyond each other idea or emotion. She describes the style mix well on the cover as "jazz, blues and other moist situations". With additionally a a bit of New Orleans influence on "Floozy Tune", and a bit of gospel on "Doctor Sun and Nurse Water" (about what the environment of Hawaii did to her), she wrote inspired something between jazz and jazz-blues and something else soulful. I like the idea on "America the blues" saying "America, don't wave that flag to con us with your jive...".."we're all family on this planet".. (Just imagine how America is built upon so many nationalities and bought talents from everywhere, unfortunately mostly still chosen from what are seen as the trustworthy countries and areas (so practically still excluding preferably the French, Spanish, and several Arab-speaking countries and native Indians for economic concurrence, racist, nowadays partly religious, and a few other reasons).. Potentionally I realize America still has all opportunities and a certain openness to experiment for those who succeed to start to participate in the system. This track, like a few tunes elsewhere has some, for me, rather amusing freaky electric avant-garde guitar by Nels Cline (Wilco,..). Alicia, for having experienced a certain earthbound process, matured, she still has the happiest aspects of the hippie; this sum must having benefited the soul and music of the singer, who on her recent photograph on the back cover still looks 25 or so, so I guess the message of this lies somewhere as a benefit hidden in the music. Rather brilliant as an interpretation I think is "Nature Boy" (originally by Nat King Cole, but also covered by Grace Slick), in an emotionally calm contrapoint-driven moody jazz style, with the help of John B. Williams on upright bass and Enzo Tedesco on other instruments. A really fine and enjoyable album.

 
Review by legendary guitarist Nels Cline on his website:

Alicia is a self-proclaimed “hippie chick” who I met through (drummer) Joe Gallivan. She had a hit book back in the 60s called [stay tuned for title – forgot it], which she says “was in practically every hippie commune outhouse in the west” (no doubt right next to “Be Here Now”!). This is, I believe, self-released, and is quite an odd but strangely entertaining, original, and disarming recording. It has a some amazing L.A.-based session/jazz players like (saxophonist) Doug Webb, who reaches beyond his Coltrane-esque tenor to turn in some beautiful post-Desmond alto, brilliant drummer Kendall Kay, and bassist John B. Williams, whom many may remember as the Fender player on The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson for many years. There is a choir on here! The songs are sort of 1920s-30s era swing, acoustic swing blues, and… Well anyway, when someone like Alicia asks me to do tons of Hendrix-inspired shrieking and psych looping (“America The Blues”) or fuzzed out adversarial commentary (“It’s Not Fair”), I figure that when the disc comes out that the stuff will, as it usually is, be buried or cut out altogether. I was amazed when I heard this that Alicia REALLY WANTED these sounds and that THEY ARE REALLY LOUD! I don’t know what people who know my music will think of this, but there is something so wry and self-deprecatingly amusing about Alicia’s hippie anthems, protest songs, and tales of failed romance that I find myself grinning. Hmmmm….Oh yes, I also play slide, lap steel, and acoustic guitar on this. I’m on 4 or 5 tracks.

Review by Platinum-selling singer/songwriter Joe Dolce

I think this is a very creative record with a lot of wonderful ideas and performances and some pretty extraordinary playing, and endearing vocals all over the place. I like it a lot!! I liked all the songs much better on the second listen. A keeper. Good work.

The album is eclectic, diverse musical styles. Therefore, I can relate to it! What holds it altogether is Alicia’s musical ‘personae’ – the complex character she is creating, through her voice and ideas. As you get to know this character more and more, as the songs and ideas progress, you trust her more and it allows you to enter more easily into whatever type of musical style is coming next. (Also this trust is a reason to want to go back and listen again.) Also the IDEAS are clear. The lead vocals are strong with a lot of presence. The musicians are all brilliant and the soloing is tasteful and creative – no cliches or stumbling around musically anywhere to be found.

Re: "Nature Boy." I believe that if you can take the listener to a unique Hilltop, and give them a view that they will never forget, even ONCE in a recording or performance, that is enough. One brilliant moment builds a bridge of trust between you and them that will allow them to be more open to whatever you do from then on, even if they don’t relate or understand it. (You may never be able to take them to that High Point again but it doesn’t matter – it’s like great sex or great playing- you may not be able to LIVE with that person, but you will NEVER forget that encounter.) This track took me to that Hill. I feel different now about the whole recording.

Re: "I Could Write a Book." This track is the track where I first gasped: genius! What an amazing idea. A track like this makes me have to listen to the whole CD over again to see if I missed anything the first time around on those opening tracks. A totally inspired idea that works. No one else has ever done something like this with a standard. Perfect. I played this one for Lin. She liked it a lot, too. (She didn’t think her publisher would like it though! ha ha!)
Joe Dolce
Melbourne, Australia

Review on www.allmusic.com
by Stanton Swihart
February, 2001

Rating: 4.5 stars out of a possible 5

The debut recording from Alicia Bay Laurel comes after a 30-year apprenticeship in everything from folk to jazz, Brazilian, and Hawaiian music (in addition to a career as an acclaimed author and illustrator), and it is a beautiful and rejuvenating catharsis of a record. It is a thankful piece of work, refreshing and pure, full of sweet naiveté but also a kind of undiluted wisdom and a strong sense of self-awareness, best exemplified by one song, “Oh Sweet Self.” The songs were written in Laurel’s commune days, during which she was writing the original version of her bestseller Living on the Earth, chiefly between 1968 and 1975. All but one of the songs, though, were recorded over a two-month period at the beginning of 2000 by Laurel with just her guitar playing as accompaniment. As simple as the pleasures of the music are, however, this is not simple music. This is a quintessentially folk album, but not a standard one. It betrays strong elements of jazz and even hints of gospel, and Laurel displays some fabulously fingerpicked acoustic blues passages throughout, especially on songs like “Chard & Chives,” the jazzy autobiography-in-song “Nineteen Sixty-Six,” and the instrumental “Sky Blues.” In addition, the influence of Indian culture shows up not only in the classical “Vai Raga” but also in the folk-raga hybrid instrumental of “Waterwheel” and some of the leitmotifs of “Mandala.” Many of the songs utilize tricky and unconventional open and modal tunings, all expertly managed by Laurel. The songs stand well on their own, but work even better as complements to and invocations of Living on the Earth. Lyrically, there is a concerted slant towards the communal/hippie themes that were so endemic to the period during which all the songs were written: love, nature, freedom, understanding, spirituality, compassion, voluntary simplicity. “Chard & Chives,” for instance, is an innocent ode to gardening that soon extends to the larger ideals of living in and with nature, and then to the importance of growing into one’s life. The wonderful “Hang Out & Breathe” offers gentle rural charms and serves as a sort of folk meditation on Ram Dass’ tenet, “Be here now.” And the a cappella “Rain” is a straightforward celebration of the cleansing properties of the title subject. But these ideals also happen to be universal themes, many of them still, unfortunately, lacking in the world, rendering the songs just as relevant as the day on which they were composed. The album appropriately closes with the 40-voice choir version of “In the Morning” recorded live in the 1970s by the Occidental Community Choir from choral arrangements made by friend, mentor, and avant-garde composer Ramon Sender. The solo folk version that opens the album is a gorgeous awakening to our common humanity, and a lovely way to bring the music to commencement. But when the 40 voices join in the end, the song turns into a transcendent prayer. It seems to break from its strictures, wander out into the early light of day, and mingle with the living earth where it can breath, before rising up toward the heavens, a gift. Many of the songs on Music From Living On The Earth, in fact, seem like small, tranquil gifts. [The album is available from the artist’s website, www.aliciabaylaurel.com.] — Stanton Swihart

Review by “Psyche Van Het Folk” radio host and webmaster Gerald Van Waes in Antwerp, Belgium
November, 2005

In 1971, Alicia was in her twenties when she started to live in a hippie commune, and had published a kind of handbook for hippies wanting to live in nature and enjoy a child-like innocence and joy. The book, now in reprint- contains charming drawings and became a successful bestseller. Between 1968 and 1975 she wrote additional songs for it, which were all but one, recorded in 2000.
The music has an underlying similar kind of deliberate naivety to enjoy life with a certain practical minimalism, which is feminine, charming and lovely. The songs are short. The stylistic folk simplicities just here and there (like on “In the Morning”) are completely forgivable or still suitable because of its strong inner sweetness, which works like a winking eye to inner wish for love, and which still works as a ode to life. There has been attention to some variety in guitar playing. There are also stylistic surprises, like original bluesy interpretations, or an open tuning track called “Vai raga” with Indian flavour, or a 40 voice choir interpretation of the opening track as a perfect closer.

This is a very nice and lovely album which is suitable for repeated listening experiences and which grows with each listen. (I discovered this album through a Japanese collector’s list of psychedelic folk). The album itself is like a resume of one life’s experience in a certain world of existence.

Review on Rumbles at Terrascope.co.uk, March 2007

On the trail of eye-gobbling line illustrations, there’s some rather attractive ones to be found on the ‘Music for Living on Earth’ CD by Alicia Bay Laurel (on EM Records) – in fact, they remind me for some strange reason of the work of Tim Hunkin, whose drawings in colour supplements described, in easy to follow steps, the workings of everyday objects such as the photocopier, the fax machine, etc. The front cover of Alicia’s debut though favours more symbolic and mystical images as centre stage is occupied by a naiad / dryad figure with a sun rising behind her. Born into an artistic, freethinking household to a surgeon father and a sculptor mother, Alicia’s teen rites of musical passage included numerous coffee house gigs in the Bay Area (that’s San Francisco, not Cardiff – ed.) bolstered by guitar lessons from her cousin Janet’s husband – a certain Mr John Fahey. What better guitar tutor could a girl want?  However, Alicia’s first real entry into the counter-culture world came in 1970 with her ‘Living in the Earth’, a guidebook for the ‘Back to the Land’ movement which sold a total of 350,000 copies. Nearly 30 years later the ‘Music…’ LP was released to roughly tie in with the book’s updated reprint. By then she’d moved to Maui (I wonder if she ever met any of the members of Mu?) and it’s really no big surprise that Hawaii’s unhurried and relaxed way of life permeates the album’s very essence. Given that the material was recorded in the winter of 2000, I’d guess that these numbers were written back in the day, as the lyrical concerns – achieving illumination through nature (‘Thanksgiving Hymn’. ‘Chard & Chives’) and investigations into eastern mysticism (‘Mandala’, the Magic Carpet-like ‘Vai Raga’ and ‘Rimpoche’) certainly seem to point in that direction. If only the budget could’ve been stretched to major label style expenditure on the latter cut – it’s tailor-made for a big old penguin-suited orchestra sawing away. I’ll just have to imagine that. Nevertheless, it’s still the strongest piece and has a melodic waft that is both beguiling and melancholic in ways travelled by Ruth Ann Friedman and Britain’s great lost Jaki Whitren.  Equally ear-pleasing bouquets come in the form of the ‘Waterwheel’ instrumental, its casual elegance no doubt making her former guitar teacher’s chest fill with pride, and ‘Rain’ which captures a wistful solo voice caught in a torrential downpour of H20. One last point of interest concerns ‘In the Morning’, a madrigal replete with handy skincare tips, such as “it’s years of cold washing that prevents old age”, which has a second and more unusual version sung by The Occidental Community Choir, the original vocal score being devised by Ramon Sender of the San Francisco Tape Machine Center (home to Terry Riley, Morton Subotnick, Pauline Oliveros et al), whose reactivated ‘Worldfood’ CD (on Locust) remains a must-have for all fans of (super)looped out experimentation.  Back to Alicia Bay Laurel for a tick: there are two other CDs released under her name, ‘Living in Hawaii Style’ and ‘What Living’s all About’ – see her website at www.aliciabaylaurel.com for further information.
 

Review on Amazon.com
by Pam Hanna
November 19, 2001

A Kaleidoscope of Musical Colors

Many-colored songs from Alicia Bay Laurel’s popular book (now in its second edition) “Living on the Earth” is a one-woman show. Just as she writes and illustrates her book, she accompanies herself on guitar and even harmonizes with herself in such pieces as “Vai Raga” with the lovely musical effects of D-modal tuning (illustrated in the line-notes). The combination of a voice as pure and clear as a waterfall and deliciously resonant guitar chords twang the consciousness nicely. Instrumentals are mellow and soothing (“Waterfall”).

There is a fair amount of philosophy and social observation here. “I’m gonna blossom in my own care./ Gonna give myself the time that I need./ Gonna pick a blossom, put it in my waving hair/ And let the blooming flowers go to seed.” And, “The city trip of being hip/ And paying lip service to law/. First was fun, but then the sun/ Went away and I had to give/. You must pay/ for the way/ you live.” And “Experiences endlessly follow each other/ Let them go by, you’ll see as the world turns/ Each one teaches you that God is your lover./

…As well as one autobiographical tune “1966” – with cool West-Coast modern chords.

But the most striking and memorable song on the album, in my opinion, is “In the Morning.” Reminiscent of simple Shaker words and tune, a quilt spreads out before your eyes. First sung by Alicia with her guitar and then at the end by the Occidental Community Choir (Ramon Sender did the arrangement and directed the choir). “Rise ye early by morning’s dew/, And wash out your mouth and the rest of ye, too/. Don’t take ye no worry if the water’s too cold/ It’s years of cold washing that prevents growing old.”

“In the morning, in the morning/ With the first light ye rise/ And keep your mouth closed/ And open your eyes./ In the morning, in the morning/ When the first light is new/ Come rise ye and roll ye/ In the sweet morning dew./

A rainbow of an album. Well worth it.

Review on Amazon.com
By Tracy Dove-Coppen
January 12, 2002

Magical and Beautiful and Pure!

When you hear the sweet, pure voice of Alicia Bay Laurel and her music, fragrant with innocence and simplicity, her songs will become a part of your own heart song. The entire cd is so delightful and wonderful. She plays the guitar beautifully and skillfully. The lyrics and music flow together creating a joyful awareness of the earth and our place in it. This CD is a magical celebration of living on the earth.

Review from Ladyslipper Catalogue:
September, 2000

In 1971, at the age of 21, Alicia Bay Laurel saw her first book, Living On the Earth, become a NY Times bestseller as well as a counterculture classic that inspired thousands to live more simply and self-sufficiently. Lauded as possibly “the best book in this catalog” by the Whole Earth Catalog, it served as the inspiration for the new large-format, hand-illustrated style employed by editions such as Anne Kent Rush’s Massage Book and Mollie Katzen’s Moosewood Cookbook. If you have fond memories of this wonderful book (still in print in its 30th Anniversary Revised Edition), you’ll thoroughly enjoy this collection of 17 original free-spirited songs written when the book was first published. Using various guitar tunings reminiscent of John Fahey’s work (which Alicia learned from John himself, a family member), she accompanies songs like Invocation, Chard & Chives, Mandala, Lullaby, Rinpoche, Hang Out & Breathe and many more. A great gift for a friend or loved one with whom you may have shared this optimistic and revolutionary book and era.

Press Release:
Music From Living On The Earth

Sixteen original folk songs, performed by the songwriter, sung with finger-picked guitar accompaniment, often in open tunings reminiscent of the work of John Fahey. Fahey was married to Alicia’s cousin, Janet Lebow, when Alicia was a teen, and he taught her tunings and fingerpicking. The songs are about nature, gardening, non-religious spirituality, the life Alicia led while writing her best-selling manual for bohemian style country living, Living On The Earth. While the book became a bible for an entire social movement of the early ‘seventies, the songs Alicia wrote became part of the folk culture of the commune, Wheeler Ranch in Sonoma County, California, where she lived. It wasn’t until much later, when the book was published in a thirtieth anniversary revised edition, that Alicia recorded her songs from that time. During eight months on the road promoting the book, she performed 75 shows of her one-woman play, Living On The Earth: The Musical, which was based on her life’s adventures, and included seven of the songs from the CD.

The CD booklet is completely handlettered and illustrated with Alicia’s drawings, in the style of the book for which it is named, and is, of course, printed with soy inks on 100% post-consumer-waste recycled paper. The song list includes the tunings for each song. The seventeenth and final song is a reprise of the first, performed by a forty-voice a cappella choir recorded in 1991.

Alicia studied piano for five years before taking up the guitar at age 12, giving her the advantage of having some music theory and fingers that moved independently. She began writing songs early in her ‘teens, and continues to this day. She has studied guitar and vocal technique intermittently throughout her life, and, after learning the host of popular tunes that comprise the bread and butter of a working vocal/guitar soloists’ repertoire, began working professionally as a musician at age 35. She was 50 when she made this, her first recording. To return to her original music, with its strong spiritual base, has been a rebirth for Alicia.

Nick