Marinated from birth in the world music, classical music, jazz and Broadway tunes my parents played on the hi-fi, I succeeded (after two years of begging) in starting piano lessons at age seven, mastered the Bumble Bee Boogie by age twelve, and was levitated into learning guitar and writing songs when I saw Bob Dylan play, shortly before I turned fourteen. A couple of years later, my cousin Jan Lebow married John Fahey, and one day I cornered him when he was bored at a family party and got him to teach me open tunings. That became my sound.

Most of my musician friends played rock and roll, so I was overjoyed when I first visited Hawaii in 1969 and discovered that open-tuned guitar picking was the national music. Between 1969 and 1974 I enjoyed a phenomenal career as a bestselling author, illustrator, book designer and media icon for hipdom and sustainability. My book Living on the Earth was the first paperback book ever on the New York Times Bestseller List, and it’s still in print in English, Japanese and Korean. I wrote, illustrated and designed eight more books, appeared on talk shows, and got written up in lots of magazines.

In 1974, I moved to Maui. There I learned to play slack key guitar and sing Hawaiian songs from some of the most soulful people I’d ever met anywhere. I learned to sing in Hawaiian from recording artist G-girl Keli’iho’omalu’s mother, legendary singer and choreographer Auntie Clara Kalalau Tolentino. I learned slack key guitar from Clara’s son-in-law Jerome Smith in Hana, and from Uncle Sol Kawaihoa in Wailuku. In the early ‘80’s, I began playing in restaurants and bars for the tourists. Over a period of twenty years I studied vocal technique with five teachers, including pop singer/songwriter Pamela Polland. (I STILL take vocal tech lessons!) My lifelong love of jazz (the first LP I bought at age 13 was Local Color by Mose Allison) led me to learn a repertoire of standards and the jazz chords I needed to accompany myself. In the late ‘80’s I started playing at weddings and learned love songs of many genres. From 1988 to 1999 I owned a wedding business that put on 3000 weddings, and I sang at hundreds of them, sometimes accompanying a troop of hula dancers.

In 2000, Random House released the thirtieth anniversary edition of Living on the Earth. I sold the wedding business and went on tour for eight months with an original one-woman show of comedy stories from my life and folk songs I wrote during the time I created the book. I self-produced Music From Living on the Earth, a solo CD of these songs, to sell while on the book tour, and, to my astonishment, it was not only reviewed but selected as an album pick on All Music Guide. Then a psychedelic folk radio show in Belgium started playing it. Then a Japanese record company released it.

When I returned to Hawaii from the tour, I self-produced Living in Hawaii Style, a CD of original and historic Hawaiian songs, mostly slack key guitar and tropical jazz. The CD features Sam Ahia, arguably the best jazz guitarist/vocalist in the islands, and Lei’ohu Ryder, a reknowned spiritualist and chanter with a string of fantastic CDs of her own. This CD got airplay both in Hawaii and on the legendary Ports of Paradise radio show in California, was released in Japan, and, in July 2002, I was the only woman headlining at the Big Island Slack Key Guitar Festival. I toured in Hawaii and California to promote this CD with a new one-woman story and music show.

I’ve spent a lot of time around avant-garde improvisational musicians in my life. I lived with Ramon Sender, one of the founding composers of the San Francisco Tape Music Center in the early ‘60’s, and co-designer of the Buchla Box, the first synthesizer built on the west coast. In the early ‘70’s, we co-authored a book, Being of the Sun, containing information about drones, modes and open tunings. In the late ‘90’s, I began partnering with Joe Gallivan, one of the pillars of the jazz fusion scene in New York and in Europe, who was the first to play a Moog drum in concert, who played in the Gil Evans Orchestra for two years and in a quartet with Larry Young for three years, and about whom an entire section is devoted in the Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD.

These men have been mentors to me, and, while Ramon’s influence is in my first CD, Joe’s influence is most evident in my newest release, What Living’s All About. Good luck in real estate afforded me the luxury of a great LA recording studio with Scott Fraser (audio engineer and producer for the Kronos Quartet) at the controls and a fabulous line-up of session players, notably avant-garde/rock/jazz guitar legend Nels Cline (best known as the guitarist with Wilco, and who I met when his band opened for Joe Gallivan’s band at the Bell Atlantic Jazz Festival in New York City in June 2000), and John B. Williams, bassist for Nancy Wilson, the Manhattan Transfer, the Tonight Show Big Band and the Arsenio Hall Show Band. I co-produced the CD with Ron Grant, an Academy Award winning film composer, who arranged and conducted some of the material, but I also relied heavily upon the improvisational skills of my great players, and they surpassed my expectations.

In Performing Songwriter Magazine’s May 2007 Issue, “What Living’s All About” is one of the Editor’s 12 Top DIY Picks, and in June 2007, the first track, “Floozy Tune,” placed in the Top 20 Finalists in the Jazz Category of the Unisong International Songwriting Contest. Raves reviews of the CD appeared in eJazz News in London (written by John Stevenson, the editor), and in Feminist Review in New York City. The second track, “America The Blues” was a featured download on indieguitarists.com in August 2007.

In the summer of 2006, songs from “What Living’s All About” got airplay in Europe and in the USA, and in October 2006, I did eight concerts in four weeks in Japan. In February 2007 I did three concerts in Phoenix, where the CD has gotten a lot of play on Radio Free Phoenix, and in May and June 2007, I toured Japan again, this time performing 15 concerts, including two festivals, in seven weeks, and appearing as the subject of a TV documentary on Asahi Broadcasting Station. In May 2008 I return to Japan for another tour, including a concert at the opening of a gallery show of my art in Tokyo. I’m currently based in Los Angeles, working on creating an animated children’s television series that features my drawings, stories and music.

Tags: music acidfolk hawaii jazz wlaa nelscline aliciabaylaurel ramonsender johnfahey gospel blues johnbwilliams psychfolk mflote lihs hawaiianmusic slackkeyguitar leiohuryder joegallivan samahia bobdylan moseallison pamelapolland rongrant

July 20, 2007

Yesterday I joined LinkedIn (a networking site, sort of a MySpace for grownups) at the recommendation of my co-author of Being of the Sun, composer and “post-theist visionary,” Ramon Sender.

So, now I have an online resume. To check it out, click here.

Tags: lote music aliciabaylaurel artist beingofthesun art livingontheearth resume linkedin musician author

When I was growing up in the ‘fifties in Los Angeles, my family had lots of art, books, and art books. I pored over them, studying in particular ink line drawings of that were both naive and sophisticated, both organic and surreal. Here are seven artists whose art influenced my drawing style:

Henri Matisse showed me how to love color, women, plants, animals, and objects in a bebop sort of way.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince was probably the first spiritual book in my personal library.

Hokusai taught me to worship volcanoes and yearn to experience life in Japan. He mingled ordinary and extraordinary visions.

Sister Mary Corita Kent showed me the beauty of cursive script as a graphic element. My mother took art classes from her at Immaculate Heart College.

James Thurber’s work appeared monthly in our home in the New Yorker.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec showed me that distorted figures are far more evocative than photographic-perfect ones. He loved the night, and who wouldn’t in fin de siècle Paris?

I've long loved the cartoons, illustrations, wit and political views of Jules Pfeiffer, but, to my astonishment, today I am unable to locate his bio on the web, nor examples of his cartoons, including his famous modern dancer.

Tags: aliciabaylaurel artist art linedrawings thelittleprince artinfluences arthistory hokusai jamesthurber toulouselautrec antoinedesaintexupery henrimatisse sistercoritakent julespfeiffer naiveart inkdrawings surrealart

Born May 14, 1949 in Hollywood, California, to sculptor Verna Lebow, MFA, and surgeon Paul Kaufman, MD, Alicia grew up in a bi-lingual, intellectual, artistic, musical and politically active household.

Almost 10. March, 1959. Photo by Paul Kaufman MD

A passionate follower of her muse since early childhood, Alicia was influenced and acknowledged by three major figures in art, music and literature by her mid-teens. Her multi-instrumental music studies lead her to learn open-tuned guitar improvisation from John Fahey, then married to Alicia's cousin Janet Lebow. A summer scholarship to Otis Art Institute enabled Alicia to study with Charles White III in 1965. While working as a graphic layout artist at the infamous Los Angeles Free Press in 1966, Alicia submitted a piece of writing that Joan Didion selected as the quintessential example of alternative press writing for an article titled "Alicia and the Underground Press" in her Points West column in the Saturday Evening Post.

At seventeen, after six weeks at San Francisco State College, Alicia began a productive career as a free-lance artist/writer/musician. She sang and played guitar at coffee houses in the Bay Area, wrote songs, drew reams of line drawings, worked occasionally as a cook, and attended a semester at San Francisco Fashion Institute (long enough to learn pattern drafting). In 1967 she moved to the houseboats off Sausalito where she adopted collage artist Jean Varda as a mentor. At eighteen, she worked out of her own art studio in the Industrial Center Building in Sausalito.

Easter at Wheeler Ranch, 1970 (photo by Sylvia Clarke Hamilton). The instrument is a Fender electric bass neck on a 12 string guitar.

At nineteen Alicia moved to the Wheeler Ranch Commune in Sonoma County, California and began writing, illustrating and designing Living On The Earth, a handwritten guide to bohemian country living illustrated with line drawings, initially as an informational pamphlet for fellow commune dwellers. Published in 1970 by The Bookworks in Berkeley, the book sold out its first edition of 10,000 copies in two weeks. Bennett Cerf, then president of Random House, purchased the rights to publish it for Random House.

The 1971 Random House Vintage Books edition sold over 350,000 copies, becoming the first paperback book ever on the New York Times Bestseller List. It was favorably reviewed in Time, New York Times Review of Books, Publishers Weekly, the Whole Earth Catalog, Library Journal, Christian Science Monitor, Look, and dozens of other publications, and Alicia was recognized as a Woman of the Year in 1971 by Mademoiselle Magazine.

Over the next three years she created seven other illustrated books, five of which were published by Soshisha, Ltd. in Japan.  (Living on the Earth has remained in print continuously in Japanese since 1972, and Being of the Sun was re-released by Soshisha in March 2007.)  In 1974, Alicia went on a book tour to Japan, stopped on the way back in Maui, and stayed to learn traditional Hawaiian slack key guitar.

Alicia dancing in Haleakala volcano, Maui, 1976. Photo by artist Andrew Annenberg

Over her long residence in Maui, Alicia studied Hawaiian music, worked as an underwater photographer, taught yoga, performed extensively as a vocalist/guitarist, had several one-woman art shows, taught art, music, writing and dance at two alternative schools, and illustrated books. Over eleven years she produced 3000 weddings as the owner of a legendary Maui wedding company, where she also functioned as floral designer and wedding musician. In 1999 she sold the company, produced a CD of her original psych folk songs from the late '60s and early '70s, Music From Living on the Earth, and toured the USA for eight months telling original comedy stories, singing original songs and promoting the 30th Anniversary Edition of Living on the Earth.  The CD garnered an Album Pick on allmusic.com.

Following the tour, she produced a second CD of original and historic Hawaiian songs, Living in Hawaii Style, toured in Hawaii and California, got airplay in both states, and headlined in the Big Island Slack Key Guitar Festival. Both CDs were released in Japan by EM Records in September 2005.

Alicia released her third CD, What Living's All About, 12 jazz and blues songs, 10 of them original, in May 2006. The CD was one of 12 Editor's DIY Picks in the May 2007 issue of Performing Songwriter Magazine, and the opening song, Floozy Tune, placed in the Top 20 Finalists in the Jazz Category of the 2007 Unisong International Songwriting Contest.

Alicia serenades legendary herbalist Juliette de Bairacli-Levy at the New England Womens Herbal Conference, August, 2000.

Living on the Earth was published in its 4th Edition in 2003 by Gibbs Smith, Publisher. 

In October 2006, Alicia toured Japan for a month as the guest of Artist Power Bank, an environmental arts organization in Tokyo, performing eight concerts.  Fashion designer Aya Noguchi created a line of clothing celebrating Living on the Earth for release in September 2007. 

Alicia returned to Japan for a fifteen concert tour from April 26 to June 19, 2007, which included being the subject of a documentary on Asahi Broadcasting Station. 

She returns to Japan for a gallery show of 30 of the original drawings from Living on the Earth, at Artist Power Bank's Jingumae Lab in Shibuya,Tokyo, and an eight concert musical tour, from April 10 to June 2, 2008.  Aya Noguchi has released a new line of clothing featuring illustrations from Being of the Sun, which will be modelled at the gallery opening.

Alicia is currently based in Los Angeles, writing and illustrating a treatment for a children's animated television series and preparing music for an Americana/world music CD.

Alicia performing on the Big Island, May 2002, photographed by Ingrid Dennerlein.

Tags: lote bio wlaa aliciabaylaurel japan livingontheearth slackkeyguitar