A swirl of emotions percolating today, as I sit here laying the last few licks on Winter Zero's first album, Canyonlands. The cherry is popped, the bloom is off the rose, the middle aged dude has found his groove and thrown it out there in the cruel world for all to hear. I'm feeling excitement, fear, relief, reflection and, most notably, gratitude.
I'm grateful for my mom, who handed me her guitar when I was 8 and taught me the simple 12-bar blues lick that became the basis for everything I've done since on bass and gitfiddle. My first song, written on that beat up old acoustic of her own youth, was about a bulldog who chased cars. A couple years later, she took us to a chimerical, mystical land that has infected our imaginations ever since: the dusty eastern corner of Utah, where lays the transcendental pilgrim's trinity of Moab, Arches, and Canyonlands.
Also I'm grateful for my dad, the rogue artist, who over his 75 years has put nearly every cent he made from his art into his gas tank, to explore the highways of America, north and south of the 49th parallel, and in turn fed those adventures into his art. He's laid a deep groove and circular way of life that has become my own.
I'm grateful for best friends. Duke, the ranch kid who befriended me at 7, pulled me outside away from Atari, and gave me the hunger for sagebrush, horse sweat, and snow. Ken, the burnout poet who became my closest confident and creative partner lo these past 27 years. Curtis, my musical soul mate and token right-wing raconteur, who saddles up with me a few times each month for some serious windmill tilting.
I'm grateful for good fortune in finding generous and patient musical band mates and compadres - Jon, Reed, Mike, Shawn. For the metal rush that was Boss Falcon. For the endless corps of discovery that is The Whimsics. For the incredible wealth of mentors in Bozeman, in folks like Joe, Doc, Noah, Eric, Gil, and the late great Kelly Roberti.
Top of the list though (even though it's way down here) is my beautiful wife, Cyndi, who found me that night in that blues club in Billings, and we never once looked back. She gives me not only the encouragement to follow my passions but the inspiration for so many of the songs that I write. I'm a better man, a better human, for having her in my life. (Remember this, husbands -- house chores are love notes made kinetic.)
I'm grateful to day jobs for giving me the means to satisfy a modest gear lust, just enough to create and capture the songs that show up in my head. To paraphrase the great Willie Nelson, melodies are always floating around you like little bluebirds or dragonflies - you only have to reach up and pluck 'em out of the air.
And I'm grateful to you, for being here, now, for checking this shit out, and reverberating with me.
The streams and downloads are free here, because these tunes were made from 100% heartfelt gratitude. If you enjoy them, please share them and that's reward enough for me. Thanks!
~ wz
