December 2, 1997

Dear Friends and family,

I am writing this letter from the Europa Hotel in Belfast, Northern Ireland; the most-bombed hotel in the country. The hour is leaning toward midnight...

We are on the eleventh floor with the window open - below are the sounds of the street, chaotic with a late-night music scene just across the street. Nowhere is the visible evidence of turmoil, although barbed razor wire surrounds the police station just a block away. The Ulster Unionist Party headquarters just to our east looks freshly-glassed with tinted, bulletproof windowpanes. The opera house beside it bears the evidence of several past bombings, yet is functional on Friday nights, we're told. That same side of this hotel is about a six foot thick amalgam of concrete, stone and steel. They tell us it's bomb-proof. We mused over that, having dinner earlier by the sidewalk windows... We were also told about the numbers of car engines found on top of the hotel (there are 13 total stories...) after auto-bombs exploded in front of the opera house.

We do not know about these things much in the US. It is a common occurence here, I understand. Odd to see people who look, act, and dress much as ourselves, going about their daily business, laughing and hugging one another by day... knowing that which has transpired here for so long has ultimately become a way of life. When does terror become commonplace. (How long we will remember the OK City tragedy and the World Trade center incident.) Imagine having too many tragedies. Imagine losing count.

This tour has been so much more than music. We have, in two months time, stayed in ten countries - Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Holland, Belgium, France, Switzerland, England, Scotland, and now, Ireland, the last days of this tour. We have seen diverse geography, spoken fragments of many languages, walked uncountable miles, ridden thousands of kilometers together - all twelve of us - on our bus, we have eaten with, sung for, and later laughed (and sometimes cried) with warm and loving people from every country. As a group of weary musicians we have eaten great food everywhere - sometimes unbelievably great. We have stayed in what ranged from comfortable to incredible accomodations (like Count Denis de Kergorlay's castle in Canisy, Normandy!) It is my sincere observation that beyond their diverse exteriors, however, people are just the same everywhere; when treated with kindness they respond with kindness. As humans, all, we appear to be way more alike than different. It seems that this is such a fundamental reality, we could find a way to make it work for us rather than divide us so.

As I sit here in Belfast, it seems so evident. So simple.

I did not write this to preach, but rather, to share. Many of you will want to know what is was like playing music with Joan Baez. I can tell you, the journey itself has transcended all expectation. The music has been inspirational, but the journey has been an epiphany...

Last night in London, Gene and Richard Shindell and I sang "Daddy's Coal" to a sold-out house at the Royal Festival Hall across the Thames River from Westminster and The House(s) of Parliament. I will never forget it. Last week, Gene and I were waved to by Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip just outside the gate at Buckingham Palace on their 50th wedding anniversary. There was a small gathering of about a hundred people there - we just happened to be in the right place at the perfect moment. I've never even seen one of our presidents...

We will not forget standing on the oldest bridge in Prague just when the first snow of Winter began to fall - everyone stopped walking and cheered.

We will not forget Joan's bursting into song (a capella) in President Vaclav Havel's palace there, either - we had been invited for a tour followed by juice and cookies in his office, when suddenly Joan turned and began to sing... it resonated throughout the halls...

We will not forget afternoon Snert with a snort, in Amsterdam, and spending the whole day with Gene's 10 distant Dutch cousins (and his mother, who flew to Holland for the Amsterdam show) and the final scene of them running in the street alongside the bus at 1:00am, waving goodbye as we left for Stuttgart...

We will not forget Berlin...

We will always remember the trees aglow in golden splendor on the Left Bank in Paris, and the rainbow that arched over Notre Dame as we were leaving...The Louvre...The Seine... We will remember the Morroccan restaraunt in The Latin Quarter there where we ate cous-cous for the first time, and the corner cafe' where Gene and I had cafe' au lait every morning for ten days, and Robin (the tour manager's fiancee) flooding the laundomat, and all of us riding the subway, climbing The Eiffel Tower, and climbing the hill to Sacre Coeur at sunset, our hotel room balcony overlooking Rue Jacob in the Latin Quarter, and Joan dancing into the night at Chez Papa...

I will always remember the cathedral in Ghent...

And our ferry rides across the English Channel and The Irish Sea... (this experience later turned into song!)

And spending a few hours in the Emergency Room in a Glasgow hospital with our soundman, J.D., who had slipped down the stairs of our (parked) two-story bus and fallen out the open door into the street, only to be immediately hit upon by two homeless junkies asking for change as he lay face down beside the rear axle...

Sunrise over the Alps...

and Fifi Shtempel...

And the rest of the unforgettable people we have worked with who have become our new family; Carol Steele, Mark Peterson, Adam Kirk, Crook Stewart, Joan Sr., Mark Spector, Chris Flory (our inimitable bus driver from Birmingham, England). We are so lucky to have known them all. As for us, I cannot begin to think what to say in my website about all of this. I have tried to write many times. Between fatigue and overstimulation, however, my words have somehow gotten lost. I know you may find that hard to believe. So...  for a better description of our music/tour, go to Joan's website at