Listening Lyrics

Alex Jordan was born to music, playing first trumpet, then bass, then guitar—and always singing.  His musical influences ranged from jazz to musical theatre.  He studied his father’s extensive CD collection, in particular the Grateful Dead section, which considerably expanded his perception of what was music.  Listening to a live album, he had a revelation when he heard a passage in which silence was clearly part of the music. “It was quantifiably, certifiably, distinctly music, and it was dead silence. I’d never heard anything like that.  I don’t know that I became a Deadhead at that moment, but I sure got it.”

Before long, he became the rhythm guitarist’s substitute.

Greg Tressel is this week's guest. 

Growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, Greg was exposed to wide range of musical styles, from psychedelic rock and blues, to the Bakersfield country sounds of central California. Starting bands as a teenager, and as a young man moving to Nashville with a songwriting -publishing contract with the Paramount Music Group, he continued to write and play his music.

Through the years, Greg moved into the management and promotion part of the music business, working with such artists as John Hiatt, Joe Bonamassa, and B.B. King. He now lives in southern Oregon.

Songwriting has always been his first love, and in the past few years Greg has released three diverse original albums of new music: “The Hard Way,”  “Ankle Deep in Love,” and his current “Half Way There,” which features the single and video  “Keep Facing the Sunshine.” It's a very upbeat song for our times.

Sylvie Simmons writes about music, and plays music. She's an award-winning rock journalist - one of the very few women included among the predominantly male rock writing elite - and a best-selling author whose books have been translated into more than 30 languages.

Her most recent books are last year's Face It: Debbie Harry and, in 2012, the definitive Leonard Cohen biography. She has also written books on Johnny Cash, Serge Gainsbourg and Neil Young.

After four decades of writing about music and musicians, Sylvie did the near-impossible and crossed over to being a singer-songwriter herself, accompanying her original songs on a ukulele. Signing a record deal in 2014, she released her debut, Sylvie, which the UK Guardian called "one of the most beautiful albums of the year."

Her new album, Blue on Blue, was released this August on Compass Records.