On Gifts

Published on Dec. 12, 2012 in the Sun-Gazette

   Juni Fisher was in town last week.  Billed as “A Juni Fisher Christmas,” she sang to a small, appreciative audience in the Lindsay Community Theater, kicking off a string of concerts there that promise to be wonderful.  Nick Jones, the new promoter with the theater organization, is very enthusiastic about bringing high quality entertainment to this fantastic venue.  Tickets are only $10, so Juni’s concert was a Christmas present I could afford to give myself.

   For me, watching Juni sing and play and talk is watching a miracle.  She’s up there all by herself, pure faith that what she’s singing is about the rest of us, too, whether we knew that or not when we bought the ticket.  She started young, singing with her two sisters Louise and Susan, and playing Old West songs she learned from her father on her guitar.  At the same time she was becoming a horsewoman, riding, training, showing and working on cattle ranches.  Hearing more of her life story and how it unfolded was enchanting. Part of the miracle to me is that she has kept these two seemingly opposite parts of her life merged, and her songwriting is where we see that most beautifully.

   “I am a poor wayfaring rider,” she opened, the hauntingly beautiful old melody that runs throughout her third album, Cowgirlography, carrying slightly rewritten lyrics pointing to the loneliness of following a call.  I caught a glimpse of Joseph and Mary while she was singing it.  From that moment on, I knew we were going to hear a different kind of Christmas program.

   She sang a song about a famous bronc rider’s saddle now in the Rodeo Hall of Fame, written by Ian Tyson which she learned from him when they both performed at the Pendleton Roundup.  Unlike her other concerts I’ve seen, this time she sang many songs written by other people, songs from her years as a torch singer with the Bob Fowler Orchestra like “Woman Be Wise” and “Please Send Me Someone to Love” that can be found on her newest album, Secret Chord.  Hearing these songs from my parents’ generation that I learned as a child was like going home for the holidays.

   But she saved my soul when she sang her new song “Who They Are” (also on Secret Chord.)  Sitting there in the dark, my heart burst open while she, up there on the dark spotlighted stage, sang about artists and artisans of every kind, from painters and poets to horsemen whose “touch through calloused hand/whispers a bridge ‘tween horse and man.”  She’s singing about people who follow a call to be fully themselves, no matter the cost, and frankly, though she says “It’s who they are,” clearly she’s included, too.

   The song’s bridge carries her biggest message:  “And if God sends inspiration to share these gifts on earth, then who are we to wonder if those gifts have any worth?”  Then she finishes:

 “If not for them,
where would we turn?
They fill a need,
when will we learn?
They feed our souls,
it’s not their choice
They didn’t ask
to be our voice -
It’s who they are.”

Thank you, Juni, for being my voice these past ten years.  Love, Trudy

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-Trudy Wischemann is an operatic shower singer who has loved horses since she was born.  You can find Juni’s albums and concert information at junifisher.com.