Santa Monica, California (07/25/08) – On September 13th and 14th, Highways
Performance Space will host the opening concerts celebrating the tour of Full of Life Now: The Love Songs of Walt Whitman, the debut album from singers/songwriters Stephen David Hewitt and Gary Glickman reviving the ageless and radical messages of Whitman’s visionary lyrics. With Hewitt singing at the piano, and Glickman on cello, together they explore the collision of human body and spirit with blissful baritone vocals and soaring melodies. Glickman and Hewitt give Whitman’s worldview a new energy and consciousness delivered with what Hewitt labels a “Joni Mitchell/Elton John/Puccini fusion.” Yet their work is unique and they do not shy away from the virile sweetness and openness that defined Whitman’s original lyrical works. Indeed, Glickman and Hewitt have carefully cultivated songs of spirit and healing in their debut release.

Using mainly the section entitled “Calamus” from the third edition of Leaves of Grass, Hewitt and Glickman have picked up where Whitman left off. “I really think if Whitman had been a musician or more of a composer, he would have sung his poetry for others.” Says Hewitt. “It’s as Whitman describes…” says Glickman, “these are spells from the past waiting to be read by those of us currently alive.” Most importantly, mood and melody have given Whitman’s message a renewed life-source and audience in a new millennium. It is almost as if the two songwriters have altered the time-space continuum and have channeled Whitman himself into a time when his message is sorely needed.

Full of Life Now: The Love Songs of Walt Whitman is fertile musical soil for sixteen original, cutting-edge tracks. Hewitt’s warm baritone vocals soar powerfully in front of rising scores backed by a studio ensemble and Hewitt’s tender piano. (At Highways, they will be joined by Maria Scherer on cello, David Sonnenshein on clarinet, and Emiliano Almeida on Latin percussion.) Many of the songs are like love letters to like-minded souls, such as “My Spirit to Yours,” “Now Lift Me Close,” and “Camerado.” Glickman and Hewitt tackle other tracks such as “We Two Boys” with a lifting sultry beat. On September 13th and 14th, 2008, Santa Monica’s Highways Performance Space will host the opening gambit of their Whitman Anniversary Tour, just as the 150th year celebration year of Whitman’s work approaches. Songs of spirit and healing have blossomed from Leaves of Grass—an album and a concert that is surely “Full of Life Now”.

Find out more at www.dreambrothersmusic.com

CONTACT:
Lillian Stein, Publicist
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Tel. (310) 450-2465
www.dreambrothersmusic.com
 

Biography: “Walt Whitman wrote radical, body-as-sacred lyrics as a young man before the
“Civil War that are still radical today—maybe even more radical today:

“It seems to me there are other men, in other lands,
yearning and thoughtful…
It seems to me I can look over and behold them,
in Germany, Italy, France,
Spain, and far, far away in China, or in Russia, or Japan, talking other dialects:
and it seems to me, if I could know those men,
I would become attached to them as I do men in my own lands—
Oh, I know we would be brethren and lovers!
I know I would be happy with them!

OKay! One day by chance we pulled those lyrics off the bookshelf, and it was
literally like the poet himself was whispering to us, telling us it was time for a
baritone to sing his lines out loud—and sing them, finally, the passionate way
they were meant to be sung, with all the sexuality and soulfulness intact, for a
new century.

One song led to the next, until we had at least a couple album’s worth of
amazing, passionate songs we’re sure the poet would think are sexy and
soulful in the way he was sexy and soulful, the way he meant his songs to be
sung—as anthems to a new millennium:

Be not afraid of my body! I am he who aches with amorous love!

That was the beginning of our "Full of Life" album, finished in time to start
getting the songs known and celebrated in time for 2010, the 150th
anniversary of “Calamus,” the third volume of “Leaves of Grass” where most of
the poems come from. We've debuted the songs at our UCLA concert, and
we're booked for two concerts at Highways Performance Space
www.highwaysperformance.org  Then we're taking them on the road, to
celebrate the Whitman 150th.

We got together, really, over the piano-- We were playing through some
dusty four-hand piano books from our ancestors, and at a certain point we
both kind of just stopped and didn’t look up for a while— we both were
thinking…this is too great to be just casual. ...It was a long time in coming! We
both knew enough to pay attention, because otherwise miracles slip away.

When we're not performing/composing, we’re both counselors and healers in
Santa Monica, dedicating our healing work, our songwriting, our teaching and
our performances to connecting people once again with their belief in –- of all
things—love.

Gary Glickman, MFT, two-time NEA fellowship recipient, is the author of the novels,
Years From Now (Knopf/NAL) and Aura (Haworth), and musical settings of
Shakespeare's 12th Night and Virginia Woolf's Orlando.

Stephan David Hewitt is a singer, songwriter, pianist and electronic music composer, writer, and visual artist. His first album, Inroads (Dragonfly Music) has been called a collection of “Soundtracks For The Imagination.” With Gary Glickman, he teaches a course on Archetypal Journeys at UCLA.