Who is this Jason you keep talking about?

I hear this a lot. He's only what I would call semi-well known. He's had one huge hit, several minor hits. Admittedly I listened to him a good 6-8mths before could pick him out of a crowd of one. I fell in love with him from watching the last minute of a video I saw of him on MTV. I wasn't even looking to watch a video but paused on that station to answer the phone. When I came back he was there. The beauty and power of his voice compelled me from just that mere 60 seconds to buy his album. From there I found his website and his BB. There a whole new world opened up for me. I found archive.org and live concert recordings. I was hooked and I'm happy to say I'm the proud owner of about 32 hours of just live concerts of his. He's only had two albums but surprisingly has a catalog of over 200 songs he's written(or co-written) and performed since his old coffeehouse days. I think I can safely say I own at least one version of every song, some songs I may have over a dozen since he never plays the same song the same way twice.

Jason and his music to me are like a glass of wine at the end of the evening. His music is soothing at times. It reminds me not to worry so much, not to take things so seriously, that love and friendship are important, hanging out and having fun is important, and that we only get one go around on this planet once so we need to enjoy every minute of it. He helps me to connect to that inner part of me. Not the mom part, or the wife part, but me, who I was before kids, and the person I'm becoming now. He makes me content when I listen to him. The fact that at times he makes me swoon with a wink or smile is a bonus. It's his words that I *lust* for in my heart(sorry DH). And it way it's kind of funny because he's so similar to my DH. They are the same height, similar builds, same color eyes, same kind of curly hair, only the hair color is different. They have very similar attitudes about life and Dh is forever telling me to relax more, have more fun, don't worry so much. I joke that I feel in love(and I use the word love very loosely) with a younger, more artsy version of him. He's a good guy and puts up with my teenage like obsession...

So this is leading up to a small plug(and I've never done this before). If you have heard me talk about my love of Jason and are perplexed you should check out his website at www.jasonmraz.com. His journal entries are always a marvel and I usually find some kind of nugget of something in it that speaks to me. He recently spoke of a trip he made to Hawaii and a camping trip with his buddy. He was so descriptive in it I swear by the end of it I could feel the Hawaiian breeze across my face...Ok, maybe not but pretty darn close.

Today they added two new videos to his site that are free to watch. The link is on the first page which takes you to the multimedia section, then click record company clips and then look at both The Remedy and Wordplay that was taped live in Japan(I think both were in the last few weeks since his last journal entry talked about his trip there to record some new material).

These are supposedly his two biggest "hits". While neither of the songs are amazing compared to some of his lesser known songs these live versions are excellent. This is the Jason that I *love*. Not the guy on the album, with a full band, background singers, but with just him, his guitar, and is longtime buddy Toca. The two of them together is magic, IMHO.