...can survivors organize lifeboats to Paradise? This is the refrain and question from "Winter's Raft" which ends with a final and even more fundamental question: "Can survivors organize..."

Like many songwriters, I'd rather eat yesterday's oatmeal than make it even easier to be seen a fool by boiling the songs I was graced by to yesterday's prose. Songs speak for themselves. Now you'll notice I didn't write "me" or "they" or "this" or "that" nor "us" nor "we" nor "them" nor "that". They are things in themselves.

What kinds of songs are they?

That will be for your creative process to design. I'll just warn you as a courtesy that if you read a couple of the critics who mentioned "electric folk" I'm not responsible for any auditory injuries when the 1st song, "History Makes It" peels out of your musicmaker machine.

Is "Lifeboats" the second released album part of a trilogy, with "Lost City of Art" by Tom Lucas and the Collaborators completing the cycle? Answer "can survivors organize..."

Is "Lifeboats" too complicated for people who like rock? As yet another courtesy from a rocker who never quit writing and playing I'll also "direct" anyone asking that question to a different door, the one leading to the "moguls" who stare at the daily statistics of children's disposable income. In the everlasting culture wars of America there persists the belief that "the people" are too dumb to vote, much less stop a war by exercising their democratic rights or, Heaven forbid, read scripture in their native speech. I never underestimate my audience, because they are none other than you and me.

Both albums come from "Other" and the patrons who selflessly ACTED on their faith, hope and kindness. They are and always will be: the musical genius, Peter Sanders, who donated 20 hours recording time; Lee VanOrmer, who donated funds to mix the raw tape, and finally, the late great, dearly missed poet, John Logan, who made the pressing of the only 1,000 copies of vinyl "Lifeboats".

What have I learned so far?

Without the help of people like them no one can be successful at anything. Pity those who never knew such kindness, and lend a hand. Without David Norod, bassist of bassists, answering a desperate songwriter's call in the night, there would be no "Lifeboats". And there will be no "Lost City of Art" by me and a group of musicians who finally found their name, right under their feet where they tripped over my outstretched hand: my true band of brothers - The Collaborators.

P.S. Yes, I always believed this music would be discovered. No, never did I imagine it would begin by an act of piracy by the UK's Radioactive Records.