winnebago dreams album
What inspired the album?
Winnebago Dreams is a travel diary of a trip through a life fully lived—with all of its happiness, sorrows, ice cream cones, and flat tires. It was written to speak to that little lantern inside your heart. It was inspired by the open road, the love that withstands big changes and hard times, memories of growing up, loss, the ghosts of loved ones gone who shaped who you are, the little things in life that lighten the load, the wisdom that comes with age, and the gratitude you develop for all the ups, the downs, the happy times and the sad on this journey on which we all find ourselves, together—not knowing where we’re going or where we came from—called life.
Who produced the album? What was the recording experience like?
I produced it. The experience was very fulfilling. I got to work with some of the best people in the world - Soozie Tyrell, who plays fiddle for Bruce Springsteen, Tony Garnier, who is Bob Dylan’s music director and a hysterical human being, Ross Petersen who does a lot of engineering work with Bruce Springsteen, Jon Gordon, who produced, “My Name is Luca,” for Suzanne Vega, Megan Gould, who has played fiddle with John Mellencamp, and Brian Mitchell, who played accordion for Levon Helm. It’s a privilege and a thrill to work with people who play and work at this level.
What has this album taught you?
I learned a lot from making this album. From the get-go, I envisioned an ensemble album. I have a lot of new songs and I wanted to find a way to record them and memorialize them efficiently without sacrificing emotional resonance with the listener. We recorded the first five songs as an ensemble - upright bass, accordion, fiddle, acoustic guitar, and lead vocal all in the same room. Some of that worked well but you get a lot of bleeding issues that hamstring you during the mixing process. So I took a different approach with the remaining six songs. I spent part of the winter learning how to use ProTools and buying some nice pre-amps and mics so that I could record acoustic guitar and vocals separately at my studio, to get just the right performance. Ross Petersen would send me drum loops and I would record to those so that time was perfect. We then overdubbed upright bass, fiddle, harmonium, and live drums. It’s a good process for songs like mine that tell stories and are instrumentally driven by the acoustic guitar.
What is the main theme? What story are you conveying to listeners?
The album looks at life from the age I am now—62. You see things from that perspective that you cannot see further down the mountain, and I wanted to articulate those things. The main theme is about the fulfillment of living life fully—of opening yourself to love, intimacy, children, to friendship, despite the pain those things may one day cause you—that you not die having never experienced the joy that comes with living full out for fear of the loss and the pain that goes along with that. Helen Keller said that “life is either a daring adventure, or it is nothing at all.” It’s about living that way.
How do you feel that you’ve grown as an artist since your last release?
This is a very personal album and it helped me to grow as a lyricist. I’m proud of the authenticity in this album. I dug deep and worked hard to try and say it like I really felt it, and to avoid leaning on cliché.