Listening Lyrics Archives

The band Home by 5 3 0 is made up of students from Davis High School—young, bright, and overflowing with creativity. That energy and talent spill across the stage when they perform. Today, three members of the band joined me in the studio: Evie Barnett on vocals, Tjin Reusken on guitar, and Andrew Gonzalez on bass. They came to share a few stories and, more importantly, to sing and play.

Simply put, they floored me.

The three cover songs they performed showed a level of musical maturity, confidence, and sensitivity you would expect from musicians with much more experience. Their performances were thoughtful, polished, and full of feeling.

This week on Listening Lyrics we have Didar Singh Khalsa. He is a Woodland-area guitarist, singer and highly prolific songwriter whose music blends Americana, alternative folk rock and country-rock.

Didar has played guitar for more than five decades. He began writing and recording his own songs much later, partly inspired by attending several songwriting camps taught by British guitarist and songwriter Richard Thompson.

His songs tend to be lyric-driven, imaginative and sometimes wry or philosophical.

His latest album Bourgeois Virtue contains 14 songs, including “Lord, Wind Me Down Slowly,” “We’re Underwater Here,” “Finish the Tapestry” and “Under the Linden Tree.”

Didar is a distinctive local musician who writes because he has something personal, thoughtful and occasionally mischievous to say, rather than because he is chasing commercial trends.