Moving back to Pennsylvania was a big shift in music in my life. I’d gotten into songwriting in Atlanta because I was an actively gigging musician. Even while working full-time as a hospital chaplain, I was able to play music many evenings and weekends. Moving to Pennsylvania meant a new state, a new phase of life (raising kids), and still working very full-time. It requires immense courage and countless hours to find your people in a new musical community — showing up to jams and open mics and just generally putting yourself out there. I struggled to do that, so my musical life moved inward.
Songwriting became a contemplative, solitary practice late at night when no one else in the house was up. I sometimes wrote and played songs for my congregation, and they were a loving and generous audience. Every few years I’d seek out a songwriting workshop, and the combination of meeting a songwriting hero and hanging out with other songwriters was fuel for years (Darrell Scott’s Songfood workshop, Dar Williams’ Writing a Song That Matters retreats).
Sometimes, you’re lucky enough to have someone seek you out. That happened for me when long-time friend Luke McGinnis, one of the geniuses behind Apartment Sessions, asked if I’d sit in on a song they were recording with Gabriel Kahane. Umm … yes! I got to sit in the center of that packed room with my fiddle, looking very much like a ‘Which One of These Is Not Like the Other’ meme, my middle-aged head of premature gray hair shining like a beacon amidst all that young talent. (Check out Adam Neely’s vlog of that day!) After the Gabriel Kahane session, Luke asked if he could arrange one of my originals for Apartment Sessions. Again .. yes! It was a special song to me already, and the fact that he’d remembered it all those years made it doubly sweet. There’s nothing quite like finding out that a song you wrote spoke deeply to another human being. So I made another trip to Brooklyn to record “No Miracle“. Bliss.
With the encouragement of my family, I began dreaming of recording some of my songs. To prepare, I attended two Performing Songwriter workshops in Nashville (one on recording in a studio and one on live performance). What a treat to watch Jonatha Brooke take one of my songs through the recording process, start to finish … and to work up two songs to perform at The Bluebird Cafe in Nashville with Suzy Bogguss’ help. I also entered the Sing Me High Musical Festival’s songwriting contest in Virginia, hoping to win 1st prize, because the prize was a day of recording. Alas, I won 2nd prize, but made a connection with the organizers, who went on to record one of those songs on one of their projects. They let me hang out in the studio that day long enough to record a lullaby I’d written for one of my daughters, and also Shine, which became the final track on my new album, Inner Atlantis. And that album is the next story …
