- Music is pollen and it floats around in the air and it lands on stuff and it changes things.

It makes new things grow.

I'm just a happy flower waiting for some to land on me, you know?

[Lipbone scatting] Music is a magical thing.

Music can change somebody's life, it can send an army off to war, it can like make somebody all better if they feel bad.

I feel like that's what music can do easily.

My name's Lipbone Redding and my home is Tarboro, North Carolina.

Hold on a second, lemme turn this thing off, right here.

Oh yeah.

You see, this is the beautiful part about having a wooden spoon strapped to your foot.

You just keep it tapping and everything you say while the foot is tapping and the wooden spoon is going, is music.

[Lipbone scatting] ♪ I been talking to the wall ♪ I like my music to be happy.

You can't always have everything happy though.

But I'm a silver-lining person.

I really am.

Everything that I've always done and worked for, I try to keep a positive attitude in all of my music.

[Lipbone scatting] ♪ Dog won't give no answer at all ♪ ♪ Whoot ♪ [music concludes] [gentle music] I am originally from Greenville, North Carolina, and I grew up sort of a normal kid.

Took piano lessons and violin.

That's kind of how I got my start playing music.

But then I was mostly raised by my grandmother who was an artist, but she was just kind of an oddball but a very strong person.

So that was my upbringing.

I was singing in the choir in high school and then one day my chorus teacher, she shows up and she has this James Taylor album, like the old vinyl.

The album was, "Dad Loves His Work," but the very last track is "Walk Down That Lonesome Road" and she said, "I just want you to listen to it and take it to heart," and I did.

And I think that was the moment when I really...

I was lifted up.

I rose in love for music.

After being in the same town all your life, at some moment I convinced myself that I really needed to go somewhere bigger, somewhere with more action.

After my fourth year of college, I just packed up everything up like a fool and went to New York City.

I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

All through college, I had this notion in my head that I was gonna move to New York City.

It was just, the dream and the reality, there's such a disparity between those two things.

[mysterious music] I think the first big change in my career happened when a friend of mine took me into the subway in New York and said, "Hey man, why don't you play down here?

You can make some money."

I was like, "Ugh, subway?

I don't know."

And I started playing and people started giving me money.

And I was like, "Oh, this is some encouragement.

I can really, you know...

Okay, I'll come back tomorrow night.

Let's see what happens."

So I was a subway musician in New York City.

[inhales sharply] [soft music] Kind of funny how it started.

A friend of mine asked me to go down in the subway one night and start playing some music.

And then as that was happening, I started to discover things about myself.

[imitates bell ringing] Stand clear of the closing doors, please.

Not just about the music, but how I thought that I was, what is my real purp...

I mean, all these big questions.

They started to kind of bubble to the top.

And also, the music started to get really interesting.

♪ Greenville, North Carolina ♪ ♪ You go to Rocky Mountain ♪ ♪ Your cat said, oh, the F-track train, oh ♪ I think I wanted to do like acting and went auditioning for commercials and all kinds of stuff like that.

I didn't know.

And all the while I had my guitar and I was playing every night, and so I decided, "Well, I'm just gonna write my own stuff in this crazy business of music."

So what I didn't realize was, well, I soon came to realize I was on a mystical journey.

I believe I was looking for my spirit guide.

I didn't even know what a spirit guide was.

Everything is semi autobiographical.

It's all pretty much happened to me, but I put myself through a lot of experiences on purpose.

I think that's a really important part of what I'm doing.

♪ Baby child ♪ After that, I decided I really needed to go travel.

Thus began kind of this other chapter and then I'd come back and I'd have all these stories and adventures to share with people, and I guess folks found it interesting.

And so I got more work.

I like story songs, I like stories, I like to highlight emotional life as well.

I think as an artist, we deal with feelings.

Like, that's really our main medium ultimately.

[gentle music] And it's a brand new song.

I wrote it on my porch.

You know, 2020?

The year that wasn't?

[chuckles] Well, it was for some.

It was for songwriting.

Oak Grove Retreat, which is where we are now, it is a laboratory for sound and for healing and for understanding.

So what we've done is started organizing a non-profit organization and we're really into sound and there's all this, you know, physical, but there's this metaphysical stuff too that happens with sound.

we do concerts and music and sound healing.

♪ Yeah, they do ♪ This place has been like a nurturing bubble.

As an artist, as a creative person, it was a extremely soft landing in a suddenly hard world for a musician.

My career has changed dramatically over the years and it changes every few years.

At first it was alarming, because you reach a point of change in your career and you're like, "Oh," you're scared, "I don't know what's gonna happen.

Is at the end?"

But after a few sort of turnabouts, I learned to kind of expect the change and embrace the change.

I learned that in order to survive as a musician or as a creative person, you have to change.

♪ Doo, doo ♪ This is your part right here.

I'm happy where I am.

Something happened when I kind of decided to just be and it's like all these opportunities started to open up, to come into my life and all these amazing people.

And it's from following that feeling of bliss.

And if you feel it, you should investigate it at the very least, cuz that's our human experience and that's what we all have in common.

You don't even know the power that you have in this world.

And the key to getting that is to be very thankful, to have gratitude for what you already know that you have.

And you know, you have to ask yourself, "Hey," [chuckles] how does it get any better than this?"

♪ I'd like to know ♪ ♪ I'd like to know ♪