As long as I can remember, I have had this calling. When I was 5 years old, a folk combo lead by Cyril Paul did a concert of Civil Rights songs at our family church. Growing up in Austin, Minnesota, I had never seen an African American man before. But we had just adopted my first baby sister, a beautiful black baby and I knew that having brown skin was something special. Cyril Paul sang about his brown-skinned people, about hurt people, and desperate people... but when united, a strong people. Somehow even at age 5, I understood. I knew I, too, had to sing. Cyril Paul sang,

  Love is something if you give it away,
  give it away, give it away;
  Love is something if you give it away,
  Youıll end up having more!

  Love is something like a magic penny,
  hold it tight and you wonıt have any!
  Lend and spend, and you will have so many
  Theyıll roll all over the floor!

Even as that 5 year old, I had a fire burning in my belly. I just knew I had to sing and somehow spread love. I knew if I invested in it, spent all of me on that love and vision, love would be like that magic penny and roll all over the floor. As an adult, Iıve often been confronted with the craziness and insecurity of living this artistıs life. But that fire in my belly burns on and Iıve come to know in my bones that love really is worth investing everything in.

Storytelling is the Irish way of making sense out of life. It is an ancient and valued tradition that has been handed on to me to help create meaning and maybe even some beauty out of all that I live. Besides, I carry in my blue eyes and laugh the stories of my Celtic ancestors. I hear my motherıs voice in my own; my great-grandmother's face is the face that stares back at me in the mirror.

My uncle, Michael Cotter, is a professional storyteller. He closes one of his stories by saying, "We all have a piece of truth, not a big piece, but one that has been hammered out of our very own lives. If we share that truth, not to curry favor, not for financial gain, but just because it is our own truth to share, miracles happen." I am a storyteller. In the songs I write, I share my piece of truth, the truth hammered out of my own life. I share this bit of truth in hopes that miracles will happen.

I've often joked that I could sit across from America's great talk show host and say, "Okay, Oprah. What do you want to talk about?" She could launch into just about any social issue we humans face and I could speak to it out of my own life and family experience.

    From my mother's womb
      and grandmother's tongue
    I have heard my name,
      been given my song!
    With their blood and their beauty,
      I have grown strong.
    With the fire of love and rage,
      I will sing on.
        ­ Jeanne Cotter

When we were children, my dad would say prayers and we kids would repeat them. The litany always ended with "help us stick together like glue...when one's in trouble we all run to help them out." Mom and Dad gave birth to five children and adopted five multi-raced children. I have learned about prejudice from a very different perspective. I am horrified by the closed doors and negative assumptions my brown brothers and sisters get. My blonde and blue-eyed brother, John, could walk into a restaurant and be hired as a waiter on the spot. But beautiful Delip, with his almond eyes and dark skin could only get a busboy job. I see the fear and discomfort in people's eyes when I am walking with three adult African Americans; yet they are my blood and I am theirs. "With the fire of love and rage, I will sing on!"

Cotter is an old Irish surname. In Ireland, all the traditional surnames have a specific motto that is hundreds of years old. The traditional motto for Cotter is "While I have breath, I hope". More than anything else, it is my experience of being a Cotter, raised by a "village" of Irish relatives and yet born into a family that holds the colors of the rainbow with our histories, inherited traumas, and grace that has shaped me as an artist.

My whole life I have heard my father say "life is never separate from the land". I wrote and recorded the cd [amber] to honor that truth.

I remember sitting on a panel of composers at a national convention. We were asked the question, "Growing up, who were your musical influences?" As each composer spoke, I grew more nervous. The other composers, even as children, had met great classical pianists and performers. They listed musical influences from Bach to the Beatles. I wracked my brain for a worthy answer. We didn't watch much television as kids nor did we listen to the radio. I stood before the audience and surrendered to admitting one of my great musical influences was the recording Sparky's Magic Piano and heard myself saying:

"I grew up where the four seasons are dramatic, where life revolved around planting, and harvesting, and lying dormant in anticipation, hope, and preparation. I learned the language of trees and knew the moods of the wind. I talked to the corn fairies and knew rocks by their first names. I heard the sound of 80ş below zero wind chill and just how its bite felt on my cheeks. I knew how to come back to life with the first smell of Spring thaw and how to mimic the meadowlarks' song. These were my influences. Who knows? Maybe they were Bach's, too."

At age 29, the oldest of us ten kids died of AIDS. Richie was much like my twin. Though we're a year apart in age, he and I shared that role of "oldest" in our large family. Richie was the thinker, the creator, the brilliant one. I was the workhorse that helped carry out his plans (laughs). I loved him and always will more than words can express. To walk through the dying time with a loved one leaves us forever changed. Before Richie died, he promised "Bess, you have to be my hands now and play for me." And so I write and play for him. I meet Richie in my night dreams and in my day dreams, in my days around the farm, and in the evenings when I open my heart to audiences.