From CD Baby, "stories and songs of modern and historic themes delivered by a great singer with serious musicality." "Yonder Shore" by Jim Murdoch is his newest collection of 8 original songs and 4 traditional tunes. Jim's interest in folk, world music and literary traditions is supported by some good musical friends who contribute on a variety of instruments that include: Hawaiian slack key guitar, Turkish cumbus, zils, Hammond B3 organ, piano, wooden spoons, acoustic bass and percussion. "Come Along" opens the album with a melody composed after Jim was playing the dulcimer and harmonica for a patient in the ICU at the UCSF Cancer Center where he has worked for 16 years performing for patients who are receiving chemotherapy and radiation treatments, and for staff and visitors. See the "stories" section of his web page for more on his experiences with music and health care. "The Heart and The Feather" features the Turkish cumbus and zils and is inspired by a story in Egyptian mythology: when a person dies his heart is weighed on a balance scale with a feather and the outcome is recorded by the sacred bird Ibis, a precursor of Hermes. Other new vocals include the title track, "Yonder Shore," exploring a search for ‘Paradise,’ "I Wonder...", dediciated to our moms and "Dusk & Dawn," a tune about heliotropism. In Greek Mythology, 4 horses pull Helios' sun chariot across the sky each day. In Jim's version, Helios' chariot is pulled by 2 horses, "Dusk and Dawn" who offer us encouragement when we may not feel like turning toward the light. "Lovely Little Marley," the story of a yellow canary features the B3 organ and drums with an accordion solo inspired by Marley's avian vocals. "La Reine De La Salle," "The Queen of the Dance Hall," is a traditional Acadian tune from the 17th century, before the Acadians arrived in Louisiana from Nova Scotia. Jim learned this song and adapted it for solo accordion from Les Blank's documentary of Cajun and Zydeco music, "J'ai Ete Au Bal," "I Went to the Dance." Wooden spoons and acoustic bass accompany the accordion, an instrument on which Jim has performed for 30 years playing a repertoire of tunes from around the world and presenting his solo clown show, “The Dogs Bark but the Caravan Moves On” at festivals and fairs up and down the west coast from ‘Lompoc to Puyallup.’ "The Lakes of Pontchartrain," featuring Hawaiian slack key guitar and B3 organ, is a traditional song whose origins are vague but seem to depict the plight of a confederate soldier who is broke and stranded at the end of the Civil War until he is taken in by a Creole girl. There are 3 songs featuring Jim on piano: "L'Amour du Moi" is a traditional French Canadian song from the 16th Century. "La Ruisenor, The Nightingale" is an original composition in the style of the Flamenco song form, 'soleares’; and the third, "Mother of Beauty," inspired by Wallace Stevens' poem "Sunday Morning," is a new vocal with piano accompaniment. "Yonder Shore" concludes with an a cappella version of Stephen Foster's "Oh! Susanna."