Carla Gover

I've been having a blast learning new steps and creating fusion dance with my new niece, Paulina Vazquez. (My nephew has excellent taste!) We have been collaborating as part of the Cornbread & Tortillas project.

I'm happy to announce that my apprentice, Susan Howell, and I have received a Folk & Traditional Arts Fellowship from the Kentucky Arts Council, where I'll be sharing some flatfoot dance traditions from the mountains with her over the course of the next year---the FIRST-EVER award for traditional percussive dance! Photo by Zoey Raven.

So, my mother didn't know anything about making albums per se, but something she DID teach me helped me get through a recent challenge we encountered while making the latest Zoe Speaks CD. See, we found out a few weeks ago that there had been a hard drive crash involving our project, and that data had been lost. It turned out that not all of it was gone, but we were set back several months in having to re-do a lot of our harmony parts and instrumental solos. I felt SO frustrated and put-upon, but after a while a memory surfaced. My mother was a brilliant seamstress (just like HER mother), and she made sure that I learned how to sew when I was growing up. She started me on easier patterns, and we worked our way up. At some point we graduated to making a dress, which required that I learn how to sew in sleeves. And since it was the eighties, those poofy sleeves were popular and I had to sew in GATHERED sleeves, which are especially fussy. Well, even the most experienced tailor can get flummoxed when sewing in a sleeve--you have to turn the garment AND sleeve inside out, and basically sew inside a small tunnel of fabric. There are several points where things can go wrong, and when I was first learning, they often did. I would diligently sew all evening, get the sleeve all pressed and pinned, sew it in, and......turn the dress right side out for the moment of truth, only to find out that I had screwed it up, with a seam on the outside, or the wrong side of the fabric facing outward. Out would come the seam ripper, along with some tears of frustration, and I'd have to take out every stitch I'd sewn and re-do the whole painstaking process. At some point in my feelings of self-pity over our musical setback, I felt like mom was at my elbow, reminding me that sometimes you just have to get out the seam ripper and do it over again. I don't know why this happened, but I am grateful for the real-world lessons my mom gave me that help me to be strong and resilient in the face of challenges, and, just like with that tacky dress I made back in 1986, I am DETERMINED to finish the project and make it better than it was before. Thanks, mom.

I'm so excited to be putting the finishing touches on the NEW album with my band, Zoe Speaks! We have been hard at work in the studio and are very much looking forward to sharing our music with the world in a whole new way! Stay tuned and check back here for updates, or join my MAILING LIST to have the news delivered to you!

Do you ever have so much going on that you don't know whether you're coming or going? That's what the last few months have been like for me, but I have loved it all because I have seen firsthand that no matter how much craziness might be going on in the world, there are still SO MANY goodhearted people who want to come together and sing, dance, love, learn, and stand up for all that is right and beautiful in this world. I will just let the pictures here speak for themselves about all of the wonderful projects I've been lucky to participate in!

There was so much love in the crowd yesterday--the experience of playing for the Women's March will definitely always have a special place in my memory. It was such an honor to stand with so many determined brothers and sisters. If you weren't able to attend a march, and you're worried about our nation, take heart. We have a LOT of work to do, but the conviction (and numbers!) of the marchers gave me such hope. We can work together to make a better world, my friends, as we learn how to be effective in Frankfort, Washington, our local school boards, and beyond. And I'm happy to say you can now purchase my new song here on this website on the music tab!

I want to thank and congratulate all the wonderful artists who came together, including the amazing Casa de la cultura hispana and Appalatin, to help create the first Cornbread & Tortillas event, for which we recently received this award from the Kentucky Arts Council for "using arts of all disciplines to explore the intersections between Latin American and Appalachian cultures and promoting cultural understanding." ¡Bien hecho! Coming soon to Louisville, KY!