Debut Album
A Wolf by
Any Other Name
LISTEN
This album has been a long time coming, and Time, being the flexible, fluid and plastic thing that it is, gave me the title first: “A Wolf by Any Other Name” has traveled with me and stayed with me for years, enduring the vagaries of my existence.
The music on this album spans the bulk of my adult life. There are songs that go back to my college years and others that are ruminations and contemplations of my life as it is now. The world that I’ve always inhabited has been edged in magic and mystery, and this is reflected in my songs.
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“Because We Love” was poured into me almost fully formed: I was up in the middle of the night with my guitar, and I heard the song winging its way through the starlit air.
There are songs about longing and unbearable loss, like “Bitter Queen” and “Talisman”. Others (“Nostalgia” and “One-Minute Stories”) are musical snapshots of moments that imprinted themselves deeply on my being.
“Jane’s Song” was a gift from my beloved cat of 20 years and it’s her story that she shared with me after she passed. “Theory of Flight” expresses the fundamental belief upon which I stand.
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ON MUSIC
My very earliest memory of music affecting me intensely was my mother singing “Mighty Like a Rose” to me when I was less than 6 months old. Every time she sang that song I saw a Being made of light standing next to her, smiling at me and I felt profound love and joy. Of course, I assumed she could see that Being, too. It wasn’t till my early adulthood that I asked her about it and discovered that she never had any idea the Light Being was there.
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I sometimes think that if you listened to my heartbeat you would hear all the music that I’ve ever loved and will ever listen to—there, inside of me, knitting my bones together, keeping my blood flowing, holding me steady in a world that tilts precariously from time to time. I love music passionately, and I like to think it loves me back the same way.
Music has always been woven into the essence of who I am.
It has sustained me, nurtured me, and inspired me—
friends have been pieces of music. “Au Lait” by Pat
“The Waters of March” —standing in my
beautiful music unfurled from their bedside
I have never been
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and in my darkest moments, comforted me. Some of my oldest
Metheny falls into this category. I remember the first time I heard
parents’ bedroom, struck dumb as rapturous, heartbreakingly
radio.
the same since.
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“In a Sentimental Mood” with Duke Ellington and
John Coltrane is a perfect piece of music—I can't describe
it other way. Someday I hope to write a song as good as
Joni Mitchell’s “Coyote,” one of the
gold standards of songwriting.