By Jimmy Ibbotson grammy award winning recording artist from the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band 

      I am greatly upset by the quality of your recording. I enjoyed your company. Your gleeful greetings have become an adiction for me. Now, your glowing review of our work at the sostice party has made you even more important to me. I didn't want to put on your work and have nothing nice to say about it. Well, its on now as I try to contact you through space age jungle drum. And if I make less sense on the printed page than you expected, it may be in part because of the effects of your C.D. I wish I could have played this for my friends in 1967. Which leads me to believe that you have a powerful piece of work here. Time will tell. I want to suggest to you that, at this level, it is enough to simply write the songs. It is enough for you, the artist to get it off your chest. Once done, you can go back to what you really do and do it without the crippling blockage of your humble opus stuck in your throat. Soiled turns out better for the next few months because you got your songs on a C.D. and your small circle of friends cuts you new slack because they see that there is more to you than previously met their eyes.
      No. It ain't enough. I'll tell you now. You've got to see it light up the score board with HOMER! You want it to show up in the National press. You want to get your point across to enough people that when you return after deaath you don't have to learn your stuff over again. Lofty aim? You bet.
      So anyway I was scared to listen to your C.D. for fear that I would have to turn my head when I saw you because I couldn't apologize enough for not liking it. Now I'm scared to listen to it, for fear I will loose my mind. It is hard for me to hear this. I am scared to let the power of its tractor beam latch on to my attention. I'm confident that I will be able to handle the danger. But it may be to early in the day and I may need to warm up and stretch my soul so I don't pull a muscle or something.
      Thanks again for giving a musician a longer lasting ovation that he can share with the shut-ins and refugees. A guy spends some time for a cause in a benefit concert. Everybody has a good time and maybe some money is collected and if the guy is any good, conection has been made with the audience. But sometimes it is upsetting when you roll over and have a cigarette and talk about it, the morning after, he's all alone in his after-glow. Thanks for being there and telling me that you came too.
      Bless you in your work.


INTERRUPTUS
THE CD
UMBRELLA MAN

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