LEE DOMANN NEWSLETTER -- APRIL, 2006

Table of Contents:
1. Welcome and Thank You
2. Highway Heroes
3. Newsletter Goes Monthly/ Resurrected Road Reflections
4. Soon: Song Lyrics on Website
5. Soon: New Compilation Album
6. Itinerary
7. Quarterly Quote

1. WELCOME AND THANK YOU

Greetings to each of you. It's Easter, and it's another good day to be alive, right? Resurrection takes on a new meaning this year at our house, as you might imagine. It's been several weeks since my heart bypass surgery and I'm deeply grateful to have the chance to put together yet one more of these "epistles." I feel in a very real sense I've been given a new life.

I want to express my sincere appreciation to those of you who have sent good, healing thoughts and prayers, those who have sent e-mails and get-well notes, who have made phone calls, and who have made financial contributions to the "surgery fund" in the absence of health/hospitalization insurance through the church. Each and every expression of caring is equally appreciated.

Some good news regarding the surgery expenses: as of today both the heart surgeon and the anesthesiologist have been paid in full. That's due to your generosity and grants from The Gospel Music Trust Fund and MusiCares, both based here in Nashville. That leaves only the hospital bill which will need to paid out over many years, but hey, as they say, that sure beats the alternative! My family and I will never forget your kindness.

Another huge "thanks" goes to my dear friend, Gracie Hollombe, who offered to send out two or three e-mail messages to alert you to the surgery and the cause for delay in this newsletter. Gracie, you are just flat out COOL!

Also, to Hugh Moffatt, my long-time friend and songwriter mentor. Without your initiating it, Hugh, the fund would have not existed. You and Gracie are equally COOL.

2. HIGHWAY HEROES -- Each newsletter features someone who has made a significant impact in the world -- someone I'd like you to know about. This month I'd like to introduce you to Beth Scalet.

It was October, 1967. I was a scared, green 18 year-old freshman at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, KS. My parents didn't have the money to house me in a dormitory, so I lived in a rooming house just off campus with a bunch of upperclassmen. I was lonely and insecure and overwhelmed, someone from a hometown of 700 people, at what seemed a teeming metropolis of 18,000 students. I don't remember how I ended up there, but one Saturday night I wandered into a coffee house called "The Fiery Furnace," which was housed in the basement of the campus Episcopal Center. The building was old, the basement dark, cool, and musty. There was a lit candle at every rustic table. I felt I had walked into a magic cave. I had found home.

Then the music started. Her name was Beth Scalet and she had the most incredible, powerful, expressive voice I had ever heard. She sang blues, she sang Dylan, she sang some songs she had written. Then she went and influenced my life for good: she sang a song called "Good Shepherd." I wept. And thus, a seed was planted and I spent the next summer learning to play guitar -- and tried to sound like Beth!

She was a sophomore from Ottawa, KS and had learned to play blues in her father's music store, Butler Music. I bought my first "real" guitar there in 1969, a Gibson Hummingbird. I later thought I'd die from grief when it was stolen from my home in 1977.

Beth continued to write and play as the years went by, based in Kansas City, MO. She has been a frequent headliner at colleges and music venues throughout the nation, and has opened with much acclaim for such folks as Billy Joel, Arlo Guthrie, Koko Taylor, Bill Monroe, Steve Goodman, and Richard Thompson. For years I lost track of her and only relatively recently have reconnected. I have learned she now daily contends with significant health challenges. It has curtailed her performing somewhat, but she continues to write prolifically.

I invite you -- no, really encourage you -- to visit her websites:
Beth Scalet or Beth Scalet CD Baby.

I am grateful for Beth, her music, and the way in which she profoundly has influenced my life. I pray I can be used as a channel for inspiration for one person to pick up a musical instrument and to sing. Thank you, Beth, and in your honor our Monthly Quote at the end of this newsletter is one I first heard from you. God bless, my fellow troubadour friend.

3. NEWSLETTER GOES MONTHLY/ RESURRECTED ROAD REFLECTIONS

Starting with this issue this newsletter will be sent to you monthly, rather than quarterly. Maybe it's an outgrowth of my ever-present gratitude for life, or maybe it simply makes good sense. Either way, you'll be hearing from me more frequently. No more jokes from me about, "It's quarterly. You only have to delete four times a year!" My goal is to make it worth your while.

Related to the above will be a much more consistent "Road Reflections." I commit to writing new entries weekly. They will be available at Lee Domann Reflections

We will not be sending out an alert everytime a new one is posted. We don't assume you are interested in reading "Road Reflections" regularly. But when you are, the link is there.

4. SOON: SONG LYRICS ON WEBSITE

It's been great to have recently received several requests for lyrics to some of my songs. As a result, we've decided to add all songs on my albums to the website lyric link, Lee Domann Lyrics . It will be an ongoing process, so we thank you in advance for your patience!

5. SOON: NEW COMPILATION ALBUM
For some time I've been wanting to get songs from my cassette albums transferred to CD (for instance, "Daddy's Farmin' Now," "Song In My Little Boy's Heart," "Jack's Easter Sunrise Service," "Alfred and Omega.") It looks like this will become a reality this summer. Another friend is generously donating his equipment, time, artistic, and engineering skills to help create a compilation CD of all three cassette albums, entitled "Old Songs/ New Wineskins." More about this as time goes on.

6. ITINERARY THROUGH JULY, 2006
(for more info, contact Lee at leedomann@hotmail.com or 615-292-8357)
UMC = United Methodist Church

April 23 - St. Luke's UMC/ Decatur, AL - am worship/pm concert - 256-355-9381
April 30 - Parker UMC/ Parker, KS - am worship - 913-432-4934
April 30 - Osawatomie UMC/ Osawatomie, KS - pm concert - 913-755-4774

May 14 - Walker UMC/ Greensboro, GA - am worship - 706-453-4234
May 21 - Fairfield Glade UMC/ Fairfield Glade, TN - am worship/pm concert
- 931-484-3473

May 28 - First UMC/ Wichita, KS - am worship - 316-267-6244

June 1-3 Kansas East Annual Conference Session/ Baldwin City, KS
June 3 - Leawood UMC/ Leawood, KS - 7:30 pm concert - 913-648-2131
June 4 - Shawnee UMC/ Shawnee, KS - am worship/pm concert - 913-631-2280
June 11 - First UMC/Smyrna, TN - am worship 615-459-2826
June 18 - St. Mark's UMC/ Murfreesboro, TN - am worship - 615-893-3455
June 25 - Shawnee Heights UMC/ Topeka, KS - am worship - 785-379-5492
June 25 - Tecumseh UMC/ Tecumseh, KS - pm concert

July 16 - Blackman UMC/ Murfreesboro, TN am worship - 615-893-0347
July 23 - Embry Hills UMC/ Atlanta, GA am worship - 770-938-0661
July 30 - St. John's UMC/ Albuquerque, NM - am worship - 505-883-9717

7. MONTHLY QUOTE
"If you can talk, you can sing
If you can walk, you can dance"
-- African proverb