Minneapolis singer-songwriter Mason Jennings started writing music when his six-year-old son saw an electric guitar ornament on the family Christmas tree and asked what it was. Since the late 1990s he's accumulated a songbag of consistently high quality, covering themes from personal to political to historical. A staple of outdoor festivals from the Midwest to California, Mason has toured with surfer-songwriter Jack Johnson and was recently signed to his Brushfire label. His ten consistenly fine albums place his experiences of love and family against the geography of the place where he lives. Here's a songwriter who can put life's passages into universal terms.