Greetings Everybody!
I pray that as you read this you are neither drying out, burning up or drowning here in the midst of our across-the-country crazy weather summer.
I’m on the run, so I’ll be extra-brief, but I do have some BIG NEWS to share...
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CONTENTS of This Newsletter
1. Big News: Going to Memphis!
2. Big Show next week in Nashville
3. New TK YouTube Channel
4. Poem of the Month: The New World
5. Recommended: John Spillane's new one
6. Food for Thought… from The Buddha
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1. Moving to Memphis!
My wife Kat and I love Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where she is Co-Pastor at University Baptist Church, but Kat has been called to serve as Senior Pastor at First Baptist Church Memphis, a venerable, progressive, inclusive church with deep roots in Memphis…
…and I’m very much looking forward to finding my place in the vibrant Memphis music community. I'll also be much closer to my family in Memphis and Tupelo. And I was born in Memphis, so this feels in some ways like a homecoming.
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2. I’ll be a guest vocalist in next week’s Long Players’ Springsteen show in Nashville.
The scoop:
What: The Long Players present Bruce Springsteen’s “The River” (w/Tom Kimmel & other guest vocalists)
When: Saturday, July 24, 2021 8pm
Where: 3rd and Lindsley, Nashville
For more info: Click HERE
For more on the Long Players, click HERE
I’ve performed as a guest singer with these amazing musicians on several of their previous album shows (Sticky Fingers, Layla, Born to Run, My Aim Is True) and I’m PUMPED to get to do their first pandemic show with them. Plus Garry Tallent of the E Street Band will be covering bass for the show!
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3. TK YouTube Channel (corrected URL)
Last newsletter there was a typo in the link to my new official YouTube channel. In case you missed it, the for-real link is…
www.youtube.com/TomKimmelMusic
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4. Poem of the Month: The New World
The New World
I like to say
there are some blessings
you can’t get out of
even when you’re feeling bad
and hating on yourself
believing every sideways thing
ever shouted at you
going all the way back to the cradle
until somebody comes along
and sees you better than you ever did
or could on down past
what the therapists call
the false self and the Buddhists
call the non-self and the ego
thought was the true self
which then melts in a puddle
like the Wicked Witch of the West
and whatever is left there
swimming in the mess
begins to gather and rise
and shake itself off
put on its glasses and
crawl onto the beach
of the new world.
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5. Recommended: John Spillane’s new album “100 Snow White Horses”
I’m a big fan of the man from Passage West (County Cork, Ireland). He’s made me laugh and cry and want to write (and give up writing) on many occasions. And now he has a fine new album called “100 Snow White Horses.”
John’s website is HERE
And if you don’t know John’s music, I also strongly ecommend “The Best of John Spillane: So Far, So Good."
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6. Food for Thought for our crazy times…
"Giving brings happiness at every stage of its expression. We experience joy in forming the intention to be generous; we experience joy in the actual act of giving something; and we experience joy in remembering the fact that we have given."
—Siddhartha Gautama, The Buddha
[As quoted in Surya Das, Awakening the Buddha Within: Eight Steps to Enlightenment: Tibetan Wisdom for the Western World (Broadway Books: 1997), 207.]
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Till next time: Maximum Peace, Love and Understanding,
TK