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When Elvis Costello asked the question, "What's so funny about
peace, love and understanding?" Dean and Dudley Evenson probably didn't
read any irony into it at all. Their career has been marked by their
spiritual concerns, social consciousness and environmental activism. Dean
and Dudley Evenson got together in the late 1960s in New York City and for
he last 20 years they’ve been making a music suffused with environmental
sound and messages of peace.
With his grey straw-like hair branching to his shoulders and two dreadlocked braids emerging from a tufted beard and running down to his waist, Dean Evenson is a vision from the past. He and Dudley are unrepentant hippies. "We are still carrying this basic stuff, which I always saw, as I was growing up, every philosophy and every religion said love is where it's at," says Evenson. You know treat your brother kindly and live a peaceful life and don't try and destroy each other. So it made sense to me." |
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Dean and Dudley have maintained those themes throughout dozens of
recordings, beginning with "Peaceful Pond" in 1980 and continuing through
"Ocean Dreams," "Desert Moon Song," and "Forest Rain." Each album is run-through
with environmental ambiences while Dean improvises free-form solos.
Dudley comes to music late in life. Before meeting Dean, who lived across the hall in New York, she was an artist. Now she plays a zither she calls the Angel Harp and Celtic Harp. The Evensons have lived all around the country, but settled in Bellingham, Washington more than a decade ago. Tucked in a wooded neighborhood, they have a wood-burning hot tub, and a house covered with moss. In their studio, Tibetan prayer flags hang from the ceiling and Chinese tapestries are on the wall. Sitting atop a rustic upright piano is a Buddha. Here they create their music, which most recently included Dean Evenson's TAO OF HEALING, recorded with Chinese Guqin player Li Xiangting. |
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Desert Moon Song, Forest Rain, The Tao of Healing |
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BACK TO SONIC SEASONINGS 2000
JONN SERRIE
JEFF JOHNSON AND BRIAN DUNNING
IRA STEIN AND IRINA MIKHAILOVA