I took a break from blogging due to the wedding, and was then busier than usual playing catch-up at work, and at home. Truth be told, I quite enjoyed all the relaxation, and grew rather used to not doing anything that didn’t have to be done.

I figured my next post would be discussing something quite monumental, for me, and that is the release of Mavis Staples’s Hope at the Hideout. The reason this is monumental for me is that a review I wrote on the TOC blog has been used as the liner notes printed in the CD insert. This marks the second of two liner notes-related goals I set for myself a long time ago: To be thanked in the liner notes of an album (which turned out to be May or May Not’s Bike EP) and to write the liner notes for one.

The story as to how this happened is uneventful: The publicist saw my review, she asked if they could include it as the liner notes for the album, I said yes, they did. Word for word.

I’m incredibly honored by this, and partly because of the timing. The CD comes out on Election Day. And the real story here is why it took me a while to post this. I intended to say more about tomorrow’s election; why I’ll be voting for Obama, how soul music factors into that; how I not only learned, but felt, U.S. history during the Mavis Staples show I wrote about; and why, despite the obvious ways in which Obama is not the Great Shining Hope so many people would like him to be, he is the candidate for those who wish to put “country first.”

But after a while, I realized I said it all in my review. It’s all there.

Do pick up the CD if you get the chance. It really was an amazing show. With the way digital delivery is rapidly usurping the physical product, I think I got my “liner notes” goal in just under the wire.