Walt Whitman sings Provincetown - Songs of Liberation - Body and Soul

PROVINCETOWN, MASSACHUSETTS –On June 27th, and July 2nd/3rd, 2009, in honor of the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, singer/songwriter Stephan David Hewitt will perform the East Coast Premiere of Full of Life Now: (Walt Whitman’s) Songs of Liberation, a concert of original song settings from Walt Whitman’s still-radical lyrics championing love, sex, body, and Soul. Accompanying himself on the piano at the popular Unitarian Meeting House summer theater, (Acker-Bosworth Hall) in the heart of Commercial Street, Hewitt celebrates the poet’s visionary call to liberate passion from prejudice and fear——and to recognize that Body and Soul are one. Hewitt and songwriting partner, Gary Glickman, describe their music as a “Joni Mitchell/Elton John/Puccini fusion—pop and classical and folk, virile and sweet and thrilling, everything that Whitman was.” The duo’s East Coast premiere coincides with the release of their newCD album, “Full of Life Now: Love Songs of Walt Whitman,” as well as the 40th anniversary of Stonewall, (June 28th), and the upcoming 150th anniversary of the publication of Calamus, the third edition of Leaves of Grass.

Using mainly lyrics from Calamus— “the sexy ones” — partners Hewitt and Glickman have picked up where Whitman left off. “I really think if Whitman had been a musician or more of a composer, he would have sung his poetry for others,” says Hewitt. “Many of the poems almost sing themselves.”
“The lyrics are spells from the past,” Glickman adds, “waiting to bring the poet alive again. ‘Whoever you are,’ he says, again and again, ‘take this kiss—I love you. Do not forget me! ’His message--that everyone is a potential lover, sister, or brother--is as sorely needed as ever.”

The lyrics in Full of Life Now: Love Songs of Walt Whitman are fertile musical soil for sixteen original, cutting-edge tracks. Hewitt’s warm baritone vocals soar powerfully in front of rising scores backed by a studio ensemble and Hewitt’s tender piano. Many of the songs are like love letters to like-minded souls of all the future, such as “My Spirit to Yours,” “Now Lift Me Close,” and “Camerado”—Whitman’s favorite word for lover-friend. Other tracks, such as “We Two Boys” and “More Than All” from Whitman’s later, Civil War volume, rock with a lifting, sultry beat:

We but looked on each other,
When lo! More than all the gifts of the world
You gave me!

One song led to the next, Hewitt says, until we had at least a couple album’s worth of amazing, passionate songs we’re sure the poet would think are sexy and soulful in the way he was sexy and soulful, the way he meant his songs to be sung—as anthems to a new millennium:

Be not afraid of my body!
I am he who aches with amorous love!

Just as the 150th year celebration year of Whitman’s poems approaches, these songs of spirit and healing have blossomed into an album and concert program that is surely “Full of Life Now”.

Dates: June 27th, and July 2nd/3rd
Time: 8pm.
Tickets: $20 at the door; Seniors/Students $10.


Find out more at www.dreambrothersmusic.com