The very first Hearth storytelling event was held in the Caldera Pub in Ashland on Valentine’s Day. The room was packed with people spilling out onto the sidewalk. My brother Trent Yaconelli drove up from San Francisco to help contribute music for that event. I remember there were a group of drunk bikers sitting in the middle of the room and when I stood up to begin the evening they began heckling me. Trent, a veteran musician who has spent twenty years playing in bars and pubs looked at me, smiled, and said, “Welcome to my world.”
Trent has been the lead singer and songwriter for 5am, an award-winning band in the San Francisco area, for over fifteen years. This month he has released his first solo album entitled, “Birdwings.” This music is inspired by Trent’s experience at the Summer Contemplative Retreats run by my friends Frank Rogers, Doug Frank, and Nancy Linton, in southern Oregon. The album is in many ways a journal of Trent’s spiritual struggle to hold suffering, receive joy, and live life in the present moment. Trent debuted the new songs at the Wild Goose Festival and will be volunteering as the retreat musician later this month at the Summer Contemplative Retreat. To hear more about the album as well as music samples you can go to Trent’s website here. You can download the album on Itunes here or get a physical copy of the cd (with a beautiful cover by the same artist who designs Josh Ritter’s cd’s) at CD baby. As one member of the audience at Wild Goose said after hearing the album, “This music makes my heart ache with love.” Trent will be performing at our winter storytelling event in January.
