Welcome To My Blog!

This is a place I’ll be sharing some of my music, experiences, and reflections over the years as a songwriter, performer, activist, and teaching artist. Music has filled my life from early on. I started playing accordion when I was 10 years old inspired by my Swedish great-uncle Ernie and Myron Floren of Lawrence Welk fame—I used to watch that show with my mom and grandma regularly! I started playing guitar at age 13 and wrote my first song “Tell Pretty Pearl” to the tune of “Tell Old Bill” about a family duck-hunting trip. I wrote a love song when I was 16 with my best friend, and performed in a folk group in high school. I was filled with the protest songs of the times, singing at home, at parties, with friends, at school. This was the ‘60s and music and change were in the air! I started writing songs that reflected my deepening concerns about women, racism, peace, justice and transforming the world, and starting performing them as part of the political organizing for social change. These beginnings are common threads that have woven through my music throughout all these years. Whether I’m singing with young children or adults, the songs I gravitate to, the songs I write, pull on all these threads—fun and play, family, parenting, how we act and organize to change the world to make a better and safer one to leave our children and theirs. I hope you’ll come back from time to time and visit here!