Jota is a collection of my favorite songs that were originally written while I was growing up and then later when I was a very young woman by my aunt, Eileen Aubert. The process of bringing her music out has been rewarding yet at the same time sad. It’s been over 15 years since I’ve seen her and she is now deceased. Today, years later and with the assistance of my producer/musician friend Jeff Muller, a lifelong dream of finishing and recording my aunt's material has been realized. Even though Auntie Eileen wasn't with us in person, I believe many of the new ideas, arrangements, lyrics and melodies came partially from her and that she was with us in spirit through out the journey.
Eileen Aubert was intelligent and artistic. Though extremely creative, she could not read music and she was not trained on the piano or in English literature. She merely read books, sang tunes, played piano by ear and wrote poetry and wrote songs.
Auntie Eileen told me once that the simple songs with natural flowing lyrics with an easy melody were often what people remembered and and liked. In other words, the easy tunes were often the catchy ones and the ones that lasted. Maybe this is one reason why I've always remembered her music. Great storytellers 'show' rather than 'tell' consequently they engage our senses. My aunt does this in her songs. Her easy to remember melodies and lyrics are simply about her life and the experiences she and so many of us have lived through. This is what makes Eileen Aubert a great writer, a woman whose songs were not fully appreciated when she was alive. 'Thank-you' for listening to them now.
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