the Goddess: Songs of the Feminine Divine presents a daringly eclectic mix of instrumentals and songs, invoking a fusion of World Music, Progressive Rock, and exotic, ambient soundscapes. In ‘the Goddess’ George has brought together nine brilliantly unique songs and instrumentals inspired by some of the all-time great concept albums, i.e. the Moody Blues’ ‘Days of Future Passed’, Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side of the Moon’, Brian Wilson’s masterful ‘Smile’ project and ‘Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’.

Musically, the experience ranges from joyfully raucous orchestral pieces which (literally) pull out all the stops, to mid-tempo Arabic-tinged grooves to lilting sambas suggestive of a Brazilian style. There is a flat-out rocker featuring bagpipes and Afro-Celtic-sounding drums, a soft, jazzy ballad done in a bebop style, and a rousing African-flavored ¾ rocker (inspired by the work of Peter Gabriel and African guitarist King Sunny Ade) to close the set.

A powerful, unifying theme provides a rich cinematic and lyrical underscore for the Goddess. In song after song we are invited to embrace enlightened thought, to explore the unifying properties of spiritual love, and to cultivate a sense of mystery and hope about the universe.

For audiences eager to hear new, different music that ‘plays on a wide screen’, the experience of the Goddess, topped off with George’s dazzling production, promises to deliver a truly remarkable ride. There are plenty of ‘other’ places and times where the Goddess will take us, but at the heart of it all this is soaring, spiritual music that ROCKS.

About the songs of the Goddess:

Imagine the majestic Goddess Juno, ‘Queen of the Gods’, benevolent protector of women and of marriage, arising after a long sleep in a really, really good mood. Oh what a sunny morning that would make! In Roman mythology, every man was believed to have a protective guardian spirit called a ‘Genius’. This ‘Genius’ would bestow success and intellectual powers on its devotees. Accordingly, every woman had their own version of ‘Genius’ called a ‘Juno’. It follows that ‘Genius’ and ‘Juno’ represent the same qualities but are simply masculine and feminine counterparts.
Also, Juno was believed to have the ability to throw thunderbolts; the image of which conveniently explains all the crash-boom-bang heard at the beginning and ending of this joyfully raucous opener.

I realized I needed a new, ‘rocker’ track to follow the ‘Overture’ and to get that I first needed a title and a concept (which is how most of my songs start). I did some searching for a goddess-name that would ‘sound’ right. In the midst of a list of over two hundred names, none of which did it for me, I found ‘Ourania’; I then researched the legacy of ‘Ourania’ and soon realized I’d struck gold.
It turns out that Ourania (‘Heavenly One’, ‘Mistress of Secrets’) was one of the nine Mousai, the Goddesses of music, song and dance. She also came to be regarded as the Muse of astronomy, astronomical writings, and tracker of the movements of all the stars. But most interesting to me and most pertinent to the message of the song was that according to Greek legend Ourania presided over the powers of imagination and higher thought in humankind. Gotta have it…a heartfelt hymn to blind (but not exactly clueless) optimism.
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When living under a religion-driven regime which dictates personal choices instead of people themselves making the choices (sound familiar?), what’s a mother or a family to do?! If one cares to research the subject, they will find a disturbingly extensive body of information on the subject of so-called ‘honor killings’. Over twenty years ago my friend Electra came to me with the narrative of this tale and invited me to write some music around it. This is what showed up, a kind of experimental amalgam of part song, part story, and part cinematic ‘soundstage’ as the carrier vehicle. Given the relevance between the message of ‘Yasmine’ and the ongoing human/womens’ rights issues facing us today, I thought it was time to present Yasmine to the world once and for all.
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I have always been drawn to enigmatic women, particularly if they were artistic (in this case a ‘dancer’) in some way. This song materialized as I was ending a relationship and becoming a ‘free agent’ once again. Although I remember feeling very lonely at the time, I had a hopeful hunch that an important future relationship awaited me (a hunch that turned out to be right). Midnight Dancer is me recognizing the mysterious figure there under cover-of-night and saying ‘well, let’s get on with it!’ I would have sung the lead vocal on it, but lucky for me (for all of us, actually) I was able to get a colleague, Portland-based singer/pianist/songwriter Rory Merritt Stitt to sing it, Rory being one of the most truly gifted people I know.
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Woven throughout the fabric of the album are little ambient sections designed to provide time for the listener to re-group and assimilate between such an eclectic group of songs. They are designed as an integral part of the listening experience, encouraging the listener to get a sense of time, setting, or mood and to help in the ‘immersion’ process. The section preceding Demeter Rising is one of those sections, depicting the sound and vibe of a meadow on a pristine morning in early June to set the emotional stage for the song that it segues into. I originally composed Demeter Rising as an instrumental (it appears as such on my 1988 release “Communion’) but lyrics soon appeared. I wound up presenting the lyricised version as a Mother’s Day ‘gift’ to my then-wife who was eight months pregnant, back in May of 1988, as a kind of Ode to Motherhood. You now have the modern (sung) version, featuring the lovely and talented Kari Groven on lead vocal. Just before the fade section you’ll hear Kari giggle (the dog barked when the doorbell rang, presumably ruining an otherwise good take). In the spirit of the song I kept the take anyway, plus you can’t even hear the bark!
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Again I have fixed upon a feminine figure with a mystery to her. This song was written by Leonard Cohen about an actual platonic relationship he had with a woman near Montreal in the early sixties, whose name actually was Suzanne. Leonard Cohen once described ‘Suzanne’ as the best song of his career. It is the haunting, true story of a loving woman who gave more than she got back, hence the parallels drawn with Jesus in the second verse. My rendition of ‘Suzanne’ is dedicated to Suzanne Vernal McCallister and to the free and noble spirit which resides within her. The most recent information about Suzanne is that she is currently homeless and living in a car in Venice Beach, California. Judging by what I now know of her story, she might actually be ok with that.
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I designed to do an instrumental piece which drew influence from and ‘fit’ with the musical genre known as ‘electronica’. I think I failed miserably, but using a production credo that had guided pretty much the rest of the album, I decided to just let the piece take me somewhere and not the other way around. Where it finally took me allowed the creation of a soundscape far more interesting than if I’d spent the time trying to shoehorn it into a particular ‘current’ style. I had fun playing with an early Joe Zawinul/Weather Report approach, using a fixed tempo played by the percussion instruments, and layering on top of it a ‘cross-tempo’ played by all the other instruments. Also, I had to write something for my friend Andrea’s beautiful alto flute, composed in an Arabic scale and thus in the true spirit of‘the Goddess with Green Eyes herself; a mysterious, exotic persona with whom you certainly couldn’t just ‘sit down and have a beer with’. Goddesses are supposed to be a little spooky.

This track was inspired by the wonderful old jazz standard My One and Only Love and is my attempt to pay homage to the traditional 32-bar jazz ballad form. I have always believed that the best songs are inspired by true stories and real situations, and for me the story of this song is quite true. You’re the One for Me practically wrote itself; it has always sounded somehow ‘familiar’ to me. I hope I haven’t unintentionally borrowed someone else’s song…I think I wrote it!
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There is a concept in Native American philosophy (also central to Buddhist philosophy) which holds that essentially all the pain felt in our human experience can be traced to our difficulty in releasing from attachments. In letting go of the things and ideas we are attached to we in turn are released from the prisons those things and ideas tend to create. Also woven into the lyric is a parallel theme; an expression of longing for a spiritual time and place (the American Southwest or perhaps Aboriginal Australia) and family loved-and-lost. Only after the ‘letting go’ of it all can our homecomings truly happen.
This song was originally recorded back in 1984; 2008 was the year I got to do it over and this time ‘get it right’. Of all the songs I’ve written over the years, the Letting Go is one of my absolute favorites, and I hope its message of vision, liberation, and honoring family speaks as eloquently to you as it does to me.
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