I am sitting in the band bus in San Antonio, Texas, right after the end of our show. Tonight we played at the beautiful Majestic Theater near the Riverwalk.
In El Paso I announced that Mike Middleton, our trumpet player, was from El Paso because he was born there. Yesterday in Austin I announced that he was from Austin, because he indeed lives there and today I kept that going. For no good reason I said that Mike was from San Antonio and decided that he should be from EVERY town we will play in on this tour.

I was very nervous in El Paso because Jon has created a beautiful arrangement of “America the Beautiful” which I wanted to perform in the beginning of our encore. It’s a simple and beautiful melody that every American knows by heart and I was worried that I would play a wrong note. In the dressing room I kept playing the melody over and over and over. When we did play the song it was a very moving experience and the audience seemed to carry the song with us. It was incredible. In El Paso at the Abraham Chavez Auditorium some people were crying. In Austin at Stubbs people sang along with us beautifully and it almost sounded like we had a choir backing us up. In San Antonio tonight people clapped enthusiastically. I think we will get a lot of beautiful reactions to that song during the next five weeks, because it is such an emotional time for all of us.