When’s my next gig?

… after I get back from my vacation to Gatlinburg, I’ll book another coffee house gig. PROMISE! My speaker stands JUST ARRIVED, so I have no excuse. Still looking for additional venues. Actually, I’m not looking, I’m just hoping one will pop up out of nowhere. “Hello, Jackie Doss? We heard you’re a good singer and you have a dedicated following. Will you come sing at our restaurant/coffee shop/church?” Sigh. What’s wrong with that picture?

Healing Conference Tonight!

Tonight is an event I have been anxiously awaiting for several months — Desert Call Ministries’ Healing Conference “Experiencing the Father’s Love.” I’ll be leading music, and I know the Holy Spirit will be pouring out his love and attention to all present. For more information, go to http://www.desertcall.org. or http://christianhealingmin.org/ or http://www.centerforchristianhealing.org/. The event is part of the ministry of the Order of St. Luke the Physician. http://www.orderofstluke.org/

Music, music, and more music

I can’t express how much I enjoy performing and leading music. The best way to express it is to just do it, right? Tonight I’ll be singing with the octet at Medallion Senior Living in Dallas. Tomorrow and Saturday I’ll be singing with the “sistahs” at the Grace Bible Church women’s retreat (Get your motor runnin’… head out on the highway…) I just finished creating the songsheets for the healing mission on the 3rd/4th of October. I’m SO pumped! Can’t wait!

Please note I added a Reverbnation banner to the right side of the main page here. You can click on the banner to get to a music player and listen to the few songs I’ve recorded (at home) and uploaded. Three are originals, and one is a traditional song that I just love singing. (Did I mention that I love singing?)

Last night: sang with the Octet at an assisted living center in Garland.

Sunday: singing at the traditional service at Grace Bible Church.

Meanwhile: trying to record more of my original songs. The next three that I will upload to Facebook will be humorous songs that I wrote to the tunes of classics like Folsom Prison Blues and He’s In the Jailhouse Now. Hmmm…I wonder what my subconscious is trying to tell me. The other tune is a lesser-known Woody Guthrie song called Union Maid. But my lyrics have nothing to do with prison or the union…. unless you consider dieting, menopause, and trying to find the perfect man to be related to prison.

I think another ‘hmmmmm’ is in order.

Next Gig, please

Last night I went to St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Arlington to lead music at the request of a friend. What a wonderful group of people who LOVE to sing renewal songs!

In October, I’ll be leading music at a healing conference. Can’t wait!

In November, I’ll be speaking and singing at the Gospel Union Mission’s men’s shelter.

But I want another gig NOW, please. A fellow melanoma warrior will be trekking through the metroplex in September on his way back from backpacking in the Tetons and Glacier National Park. I’d like to book a gig in or near Arlington during the time he’s here. If anyone knows a good venue there, please let me know! Other melanoma warriors will be gathering as well, so we’d like to find a comfortable place.

Soon I’ll be recording some of my songs via software on my computer. Wish me luck… that you won’t hear the dogs in the background. I want to upload some tunes to my Facebook page, and maybe even HERE if I figure out how!

Gigs are Fun

Dang, I wish I could just do that every night! I can’t imagine anything more fun than singing. I’m really glad people enjoy listening too. Most of my life I’ve just played and sung for myself, so it’s a bonus that other folks like to hear it too.

The theme for the night was “All You Need is Love” even though I didn’t sing “All You Need is Love” due to a lack of symphony orchestra and back-up singers. But what I wanted to point out in all of the love songs is that …. love songs are kinda scary. If you really listen to the words, you have to wonder about the people who wrote them. I think they’re all potential stalkers.

One of the songs I learned and have been practicing was Diamonds and Rust by Joan Baez. I stretched myself a bit to learn the unusual guitar riff part between verses and practiced pretty hard (but apparently not enough). When it came time to play it in the song, I chickened out. Ugh. Such pressure. Plus, for some reason my fingers weren’t working for the basic hammer part that I had down pat. I kept looking at the guitar neck as if it had suddenly moved the strings just to mess me up. Well, I’m going to keep working on that one, because I sing it pretty well. So I’d like to play it well too.

And what was the last song requested? How Great Thou Art. “No big,” I thought. I just sang it a couple of weeks ago with the worship team at church. The first high note…. oops. Didn’t make it. But I nailed the rest of it…. except for the part when it modulates up a key. I saw it coming and decided against modulating. Note to self: NO MORE LATTE’s BEFORE SINGING!

All in all, it was a really fun night. People seemed to enjoy my original songs, and they were singing along with old favorites. AND I raised $148 for the James A. Schlipmann Melanoma Cancer Foundation. Yay!

Tonight’s Gig: Amazing Love

Most of the people who told me they’d be coming to my gig tonight are Christians who like Christian music, so I decided to put a solid list of Christian songs together. By the time I finished, the list had over 100 songs. And those were just the tunes that I felt confident enough to perform and that lend themselves to “just a woman and her guitar.” If you’re coming for “praise and worship” time, you won’t be disappointed.

But I have friends from an array of world views, and they love me “even if she is a Christian.”     Of course, the feeling is mutual, so I brushed up my secular repertoire as well. Right now, the list has over 30 songs on it. That number, alone, will get me through an hour and a half of performing, so I don’t think there will be any lack of secular material to draw from!

In fact, I was so inspired by this list of secular songs that I decided to do a theme night: “All You Need is Love.” (um, well, except I won’t be singing “All You Need is Love” because “all you need” for that song is four part harmony, back up singers, and a symphony orchestra… and I am short on those ingredients.

Hmmm. So perhaps I should change the theme to “Addicted to Love,” “Love is a Many Splendoured Thing,”You Made Me Love You”  or …. well, since none of those songs are in the repertoire either, how about “Love Will Keep Us Alive”? Nope… too long for a theme title. Geez, such mental energy required for such a small task. Amazing.

A Healing Conference

I’ve been asked to lead the music at a Healing Conference in October. I’m SO excited about it! If you’ve never been to a healing event, you should consider attending. Don’t worry. It’s not a weird Benny Hinn kind of thing. Just inspirational talks and lots of prayer and worship. Explore the reasons why you CAN be healed from physical or spiritual encumbrances. If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, just show up.

Info can be found at: http://www.desertcall.org/conference.htm

You can also find out more about healing ministries at http://www.orderofstluke.org/ and http://centerforchristianhealing.org/.

Gig: postponed

Why? Because I was in an accident Tuesday and my car looks like this:

And my face doesn’t look much better.

Actually, I’m very well, considering. However, because the crash left a hematoma in the arm that already has lymphedema, it made my arm swell A LOT, which means that I have to keep it wrapped, which means I can’t play the guitar, which means my gig is postponed. I was really l looking forward to it.  

I’m not sure when I will reschedule, but I hope that it will be sometime in the next month. Lymphedema really puts a cramp in my style. But as I always say, at least I’m here to complain about it.

 

Union Gospel Mission

I was privileged to speak and sing at the Union Gospel Mission’s Women’s Shelter Friday. I have been wanting to do something like that for a while, but, as has been my modus operandi all of my life… I didn’t know whom to ask . . . and I was afraid to find out. 

I’m one of those people who takes “wait upon the Lord” a little too far. I’m NOT a mover and a shaker. I’m a waiter. God will nudge me about something he wants me to do, and I’ll get excited about it. Then I’ll wait for more nudging. Then I’ll get scared and say . . . “Well, Lord, whenever you send someone to knock on my door and ask me to do it, or tell me exactly what to do without my asking, or take me by the hand and say, ‘You have GOT to do this!’ … I’ll do it.”

Just call me Gideon—”Are you SURE you want me to do that? Are you ABSOLUTELY SURE? Am I hearing you right? Or am I just making something up that I think I want to do and hoping you’ll go along? I’d better wait until I know for SURE that it’s what you want me to do.”

There’s no telling how many opportunites I have squandered by hesitating.

Part of my hesitation stems from my desire to make sure I’m discerning God’s will correctly. And part of it is pure, unadulterated fear — fear of commitment, fear of making a fool of myself, fear of change, fear of the unknown, fear for the sake of fear.

It was a blessed time at the women’s shelter. I was reminded of how far God has brought me . . . and how far he can bring each one of those women who are in the wilderness. I don’t know if God has plans for me to do that kind of thing again, but I certainly enjoyed it. So I guess I’ll wait and see.