Mama Gina singer/songwriter & wanderlust ... fearless story-telling ... bluesy vocals ... humor ... straight-ahead, rhythmic, 12 string acoustic guitar ... djembe ... frame drums ... all weft and warp of the soul of this bard Singer/songwriter and wanderlust Mama Gina feels most at home when she can feel the earth beneath her feet and taste the freedom of the open sky. With down-to-earth, bluesy vocals, a bit of humor, and straight-ahead, rhythmic, acoustic guitar, she tells the true stories that fall into her head and heart. She sings of life, death and rebirth. She sings of holding on and letting go. She speaks to the Gods and Goddesses and they speak back. She sings their stories as they become her own. She sings of her spiritual connection to the natural world, and of our responsibility to nurture both the mundane and the magical. When she is not performing, you just might find her camping in the woods seeking inspiration from the earth beneath her feet and that vast, open sky. Mama Gina is "The Undertaker's Daughter" Blessed with an unconditionally loving family, I spent my earliest years in the back of the funeral home where my father worked and my family lived. I attended private, all-girl, Catholic schools right through high school graduation. What better environment to foster questions about death and dying, end of life rituals, perfect love and perfect trust, and Goddess worship? Early grade school, Sr. Roberta, our music teacher, volunteered me to sing with a special choir for a school play. In fourth grade, I took guitar lessons with my sister’s guitar, and began writing songs about the Virgin Mary – which I performed at school functions – and which greatly impressed the nuns (well, they were very sweet and acted sufficiently impressed to this fourth grader’s heart). I sang in various church choirs, played folk masses, and sang and performed in musicals all the way through high school. The synthesis of music, ritual and prayer was as natural as breathing. My parents did not listen to much in the way of popular music. In fact, I recall, quite distinctly, singing, “I wanna hold your hand …,” around 3 years old, and my mother stopping me and saying, “I don’t know where you heard that, but don’t sing that nasty music.” I remember seeing Elvis on a black & white TV, and someone turning it off very quickly because I was in the room. I grew up with Christmas music, show tunes, orchestral arrangements, and lots of Keely Smith (my Grandmother was a fan). And then, I saved up my pennies and bought my first radio in 10th grade! It was going to take me a long time to catch up on what I had been missing. At 17, I began singing with a guitar/harmonica player covering Janis Joplin, Fleetwood Mac, Tina Turner, and anything we could pull off for $25 and all the beer and oysters we could handle. I wasn’t much on beer or oysters, but I loved being on stage. I joined my first showband on the road at 19, and finally learned just how terrible I was. The band hired me because they needed a warm body to shake a tambourine for a few weeks until they found someone with real talent. Fooled them … I couldn’t even shake a tambourine in time. Fortunately for me, the other girl they hired at the same time was even worse. They let her go, and I went to beg for my job and lessons. I spent two years on the road with that band (HiRize), and those musicians taught me so much. One night each week after work, the keyboard player would teach me basic music theory and how to pick out harmony lines, and how to play a little keys. The guitar player was relentless about pointing out where I sang sharp and flat every night … and I am grateful. The drummer taught me how to count, until I could play a little drums on stage. All of them exposed me to music I had never heard. I learned to listen to jazz (all kinds), blues, pop, punk, country, rock, folk, and classical music, with a musician’s ear. When I left them, I spent a year in Memphis, TN working with some incredible musicians, some of whom used to be on the old Stax label. Immersed in this blues heaven, I really found my home. Even now, no matter what I’m singing, I think that blues influence comes through either in diction, timbre, emotion or timing, if not in every way. Since then, I have played in full bands, trios and duos, playing covers and writing originals, and performing a bit of every popular genre of music, including, egads, rap. I am proud and grateful to have worked with incredibly talented musicians who always had much to teach me. The summer of 2009, my son and I traveled to Pagan Spirit Gathering in the Ozarks in Missouri. We managed to fit my djembe in with all the camping gear. Early that week, the rain came, the creek flooded, and I sat alone under the ez-up at my camp for several hours in the midst of that rainstorm. Such a defining moment, and it’s still hard to describe … Goddess spoke to me and reminded me of the connection of music, spirit and prayer. I think that was the first time that I ever really prayed with my drum for hours. I began writing that week, and haven’t stopped. My musical influences range far and wide. I love our modern Pagan musicians. And my greatest influence these days is the world around me, the Gods and Goddesses and Essences that speak to me. I often crave silence so that I can hear them. The Undertaker’s Daughter is a story of four generations in three verses. My father rode with me to a festival in Virginia last August 2013, and he crossed over in 2005. So I listened. I began writing it in an accusatory tone – that parents keep secrets from us – that they don’t tell us everything. In fact, the line at the end of the chorus was going to be, “We really shape our children with the things that we don’t say.” But I kept listening, and when I wrote the final verse where I am the parent and handing my father’s ring to my son, I realized I didn’t have the answers either. The line became, “ … with the things that we can’t say.” This truth is not something I could have heard in anything but silence. The songs on “The Undertaker’s Daughter” were all born in silence and deep listening. Well, except for The Brownie Song – that was born in silliness and laughter. I truly am looking forward to everything the future holds for me musically. See you down the road!