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Music

New CD: The Wildwood Session


The Wildwood Session is a full-length album of piano music I recorded at Wildwood Studio (Nashville). I'm joined by cellist John Catchings and violinist David Davidson. For info, or to order, click here.


Above I'm playing the Yamaha C-7 at Wildwood Studio, with John Catchings playing cello in the background.

Music was my first career. I started playing piano when I was 4 and was working by 15. Below blues legend Pinetop Perkins and I play together in my dining room in the fall of 2007.

I had a nice early career in Nashville, but I went back to Arkansas to be an indie outsider. Below I'm between my guests Alex Somers (Parachutes) and Jonsi Birgisson (Sigur Ros) in my kitchen, Aug 2007.


I'm a performer, producer, arranger, teacher and engineer. Below I'm with Mark Wright, President of Universal Records (Nashville), fall 2008, backstage at an award show where we were presenters.

I've made new friends in the blues world lately. Below I'm with Bubba Sullivan, co-founder of the King Biscuit Blues Festival, in Helena, Arkansas, at Bubba's Blues Corner, 2009.

It's funny that some people call me a jazz musician; seems to me I play most other kinds of music as well as I play jazz. Below I'm with jazz stars Vijay Iyer and Rudresh Mahanthappa at a music for film event I hosted.

Interview

Sept 1, 2009: Becoming a musician


how did you get started in music?

my mother's a piano teacher and when i was 3 or 4 she started teaching me.

was it the traditional kind of piano lessons, like classical music and scales and all that?

yeh, i did all that, especially bach from a very young age, but mom also taught improvisation and theory and she knew how to make theory applicable.

was your dad musical too?

dad played some guitar, but he loves music, he's a true fan of music, and this is where it gets interesting because while mom was teaching bach and chopin dad was into chet atkins, carl perkins, merle travis, speedy west, bob wills, elvis, ray price, scotty moore, that kind of thing.

was it good for you to have those influences, or was it confusing?

i think it was great because i grew up with an innate understanding and a true love for all these different kinds of music. i can listen to cowboy songs, rockabilly, bluegrass, gospel quartets, whatever, and be moved as deeply, and have as broad an understanding of the music, as i do when i hear the best classical or jazz music.

and you can play all these different styles of music.

yeh. i'd say that's one of my strengths. being able to cross the style boundaries.

how old were you when you knew you wanted to be a musician?

it's funny, it was like my mother felt a calling, like a god-given calling, to make me a musician. from the beginning, music was presented to me as this sacred thing, a thing that had to come before everything else in life. the neighborhood kids would come to the door and ask if i could come play and mom would say "no, he has to practice." when i was old enough to get into football and baseball, she wouldn't let me try out. in retrospect it was very extreme. it was like i was being prepared for the olympics of music.

wow. how did that effect you?

it made me a good musician. it made me a person who reads music like you read the english langauge. by the time i was in jr. high i could listen to the radio and know all the harmonies and intervals i was hearing. at the same age i could hear a song one time and play it without having to see it on paper. i had an entire book of johann sebastian bach memorized, was playing a hammond organ in church, and was writing folk and rock songs with lyrics when i was 12. that was my childhood. so when you ask me when i knew i wanted to be a musician it really doesn't make sense to me, because i was a musician from the beginning, from as far back as i can remember. even though it really wasn't my decision.

is there a chuck dodson style?

i don't know. i mean, i recognize things i do, like signature licks and harmonies. but i've also heard music i've recorded and not known it was me.

where are you with your musical development now, going into the fall of 2009?

lately i've let myself get away from full time music making to learn how to make movies. most of the movies are about other musicians so i really haven't gotten away from music. i'll be in nashville producing some things later this month (sept 2009) and i've been thinking more and more about music in the last few weeks so maybe i'll do something before long.

where do you think music is right now, culturally speaking?

it's a great time to be indie because there's so much you can do for so little money. 10 or 15 years ago i'd go to tower records at least once a week and listen to the new cds on headphones. now myspace is such a fresher way to do that. stylewise it's an interesting time because i think we're at one of the big crossroad moments where the old styles are worn out and it's time for new things to happen. i'm interested in video-music mashups. a friend of mine did some nice live video mixing at a club show last week. i stood behind him and watched him working the knobs. i like rudresh mahanthappa's last cd where he's blending jazz and indian music. i'm just looking for ways to liberate myself from the way i've always heard things should be.

what kind of music do you think you'll make in the future?

i don't know. i was raised on the piano, but the piano's an old instrument. i'm not sure i feel the need to build on what so many great artists have done with the piano over the last couple of hundred years. through the 80s i made music with machines. in the 90s i went back to keyboards and guitars. for the last ten years i've made music mostly inside software just by manipulating pictures of sound. what i know is that what i do in the future should frighten me. and i know it should stretch me. and it should be at least somewhat shocking to my culture. other than that, i don't really know what to expect.

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