Have you ever wondered about the offstage world of a professional musician? Every month in this column, bluegrass now will provide a glimpse into the lives of some of your favorite bluegrass stars. To see captions, just move your cursor over the photos!

She's just gotten home from England, she's about to depart for another festival, and then she's leaving for a whitewater rafting adventure! Laurie Lewis always seems to be on the move. One wouldn't be surprised to learn that she carried her home on her back, wrapped in a bandanna and tied 'round a walking stick.

It's quite amazing, then, to hear that Laurie has lived in the same house in Berkeley, California, for almost 30 years. “It's an old house, built right about the turn of the last century,” she says. “After all these years, it's still definitely a work in progress! Old houses take a lot of nudging along to keep them livable.”

The fine old home is furnished with an eclectic mixture of pieces that Laurie has collected. “Gleanings from rummage sales and junk stores over thirty years! I'm lucky; I've got some really nice things.” One of her favorite pieces is an old rocking chair. “It's a big oak rocker, very simple in design. The only problem is, it's got arms, so you can't sit in it and play music!”

A Grammy nominee and two-time IBMA Female Vocalist of the Year, Laurie has a busy touring schedule. Sometimes she's only home for a few days between travels. This doesn't leave much time for those little projects around the house, but she does her best to keep up. “I mess around in my garden, but it's the same thing as having a pet… the pets in my garden don't do so well while I'm gone!”

Laurie is a vegetarian whose idea of a perfect meal is a single perfect peach, and she has found heaven in her little community. “We live between two organic farmers' markets, three blocks from one and five blocks from the other!” she confides happily. “That's where I do all my produce shopping.” (When she's home long enough to shop, of course!) “The cooking thing is a little awkward, because I don't have somebody who stays home and stocks the refrigerator,” she explains. “Any time I go on the road, it's a matter of emptying the fridge, and then we come back, and nothing's there.”

Even when it's mostly empty, Laurie's fridge usually contains bottles of soy sauce, sesame oil, and mustard, three condiments that she uses frequently. “There's always a bottle of Red Tail Ale, but that may be because we don't drink it quickly enough!” she muses. “And there's always dinosaur kale… it's one of my favorite greens these days.”

A healthy diet helps Laurie stay trim when she's on the road, something that many other musicians find difficult. She's also a runner. “The easiest thing is running on the road. All you have to do is take your running shoes, and some clothes you don't mind sweating in. It only takes a twenty-minute run in the morning. That's the quickest thing you can do, for the biggest benefit!”

When she's home, Laurie takes Iyengar and Ashanti yoga classes. “And I love riding my bike! I ride up in the hills whenever I can.” She finished the California AIDS Ride in 1997, pedaling the 583 miles from San Francisco to Los Angeles, and raised over $6,000 for AIDS foundations in both cities.

Then there are the river trips. Each year, Laurie and musical co-conspirator Tom Rozum participate in a tour or two of some of North America's great rivers. Past trips have included excursions on the Rio Grande through Big Bend and the Taos Box, down Arizona's Salt River, the Chama in northern New Mexico, Oregon's Rogue, the Middle Fork of the Salmon in Idaho, and Northern California's Tuolumne. The three-day adventures cost less than $500.

“This year, we're doing three tours. I'm happy to say they're all full!” Laurie announces. “They're our answer to the bluegrass cruise!”

The trips are organized and guided by Far-Flung Adventures and EchoTrips, and Laurie and Tom help provide the music. “In the evenings, when the guides are cooking these incredible meals, we take out our instruments and play music 'round the campfire. It is such heaven.” They both have special instruments for the trips. “We don't take our really good ones; we take our 'river instruments', which are great.” They haven't gotten wet yet, she says. “Knock on wood! They're in hardshell cases, and then put in dry bags and strapped onto the supply boat. It's pretty stable.”

The winding rivers hold boundless appeal. “We go in places where you don't hear motors at all. In our lives, it's amazing how much noise is produced, just by refrigerators humming, computers, electrical gadgets, cars and planes and trucks! It's really a treat to the ears to get to a place where none of that exists. Just the sound of the water, either loud or soft; of the wind and the birds and nature around you.”

Birds are a rich source of inspiration for this gifted songwriter, whose latest CD is called Birdsongs. “Since I seem to love songs about birds, and bird imagery, I've wanted to put this together for a long time,” Laurie explains. “It's a benefit for the Audubon Canyon Ranch, a great blue heron and snowy egret rookery in California.” The project contains both new songs and previously recorded material, all with bird themes.

Laurie has started working on a new duet album with Tom, and she's also in the middle of recording another solo album, mostly of her own original songs, with guests like fiddler Darrell Anger, bassist Todd Sickafoose, and guitarist Nina Gerber. “So we're very busy in the studio when we're not out on the road!” she says.

For the moment, however, Laurie Lewis is happy to be at home in her old house, with her almost-empty fridge and a beautiful garden that could maybe use just a little bit of attention. “I wander a lot, but I have this place to come home to, which is such a blessing,” she smiles. “I thank my lucky stars!”

Visit Laurie on the Web at www.laurielewis.com.

A Virtual Postcard From LAURIE LEWIS

Laurie regularly sends an e-mail newsletter about her adventures to her fans and friends. She's graciously agreed to let us print this fascinating excerpt here.

Greetings, fellow travelers,

I have had the most amazing month. It began with the excitement of getting my new Birdsong CD delivered. Then I went to Yosemite for a few days and hiked up Half Dome (18 mile round-trip with 4,800' elevation climb). Immediately following was the California Bluegrass Association music camp, which gave Tom Rozum and me a chance to jam with old-time music luminaries Bruce Molsky and Tom Sauber. I thoroughly enjoyed the fiddling, songwriting, and harmony-singing workshops.

As soon as camp was over, we drove back to Berkeley, had a few hours sleep and caught a flight to London, where we played at the A1 Festival of Music and Dance. We managed to squeeze in a few days of vacation, visiting the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford (a collection of cultural artifacts from around the world with no seeming connecting thread, except that it's all strange and interesting) and the Tate Gallery in London. We experienced lots of rumbling and rolling on the Underground, a visit to an ancient beech tree near the village of King's Cliffe, walks along canals on the northern Welsh border, jamming with fine English musicians and eating some great food.

With so many changes in so short a time, I felt like I was in the middle of some strange new triathlon event! I don't know that I won, but I completed the course in fine fettle. It is good to be back home again.

This world is a beautiful place, and we are the lucky ones.

Walk softly,
Laurie Lewis