Legends of the High Desert

A few weeks back I had the pleasure to visit Joshua Tree with my wife and son. I guess for some people the place invokes U2, but it always makes me think of Gram Parsons and his hippie/ Dylanesque updating of the high-lonesome sound.

Here is my piece that runs in this Sundays’ LATimes. It’s both a meditation on the power of music and a trip-with-kids story. It’s also one of the few trips I’ve taken as an adult that I have really screwed up, at least the Pioneertown part. (I keep thinking of Sam Shepard’s play “True West” whenever I am in its faux-Wild West environs.)

A lot of fun to be out in the desert with Ian and his 3-year-old’s perceptions.

I look forward to going back and seeing a show at Pappy and Harriet’s, where Lucinda Williams, Jim Lauderdale and others play regularly. (The place seems to be stretching beyond country and alt-country these days: England’s Arctic Monkeys played a post-Coachella show there a few days after we left.)

I’ll fill out this post shortly.