Making "No Wilder Place"

Well, the carrots, onions, and potatoes are up in my garden along with the weeds which I take altogether too much pleasure in ripping out of the ground by the roots.  I'll soon be packing for Laramie, Wyoming and am brushing up on all my outlaw songs to share for the Butch Cassidy Festival.  Millie is banging around the kitchen making waffles for dinner because we have more eggs from our chickens than you would think possible and I am commencing to write a blog about my new CD "No Wilder Place."

 

"No Wilder Place" was released in January and continues to astonish me as friends and fans tell me about their favorite songs and how much they love the CD.  As an artist I feel like sighing and saying "Phew!"

 Or in the immortal words of Sally Fields, "They like me!  They really like me!"   I know it's silly, but it's hard to describe the exquisite kind of angst experienced when you invest time, money and a large piece of your soul in a body of work you hope resonates with folks. 

I was looking through my old notes today for "No Wilder Place" as I sat by the pool watching the girls swim.  I smiled as I remembered pouring over my notes every night before bed for almost a whole year.  There were my first scribblings for "Jenny's Lament", mix notes from my days at MAS studios and even a couple of songs I scrapped.  The song "Fringe" was written the week before I went in to record which is something I swore I never would do again, but "Fringe" is now the #1 downloaded song from the CD.  I found my alternate lyrics to "Once Upon a Horse" which were "...took her from her mountain home to Tennessee."  I guess I wanted it to be more vague by saying "...to his kingdom by the sea."

My friend and ace photographer, Lori Faith Merritt ( http://www.photographybyfaith.com ), just got her cover shot for "No Wilder Place" in the  national publication Ranch & Reata.  It's a stunning image that I can take little credit for.  It was taken in Death Valley Utah on a day so cold that we only stopped shivering long enough to point and click.  My dresses for the shoot were shipped from Montana Dreamwear 

( http://www.montanadreamwear.com )and I was honored to wear such works of art. I've included the photo above.

I've already started writing for a new CD and have a fresh book of notes to pour over every night which I call a "hook book", but I am pleased as punch with the way "No Wilder Place" is out there going down the highway with people and becoming part of the fabric of their life in the West.