{"id":23639,"date":"2022-09-03T05:30:50","date_gmt":"2022-09-03T09:30:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=23639"},"modified":"2022-09-03T18:01:28","modified_gmt":"2022-09-03T22:01:28","slug":"david-wilcox-braving-the-emotional-weather","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2022\/09\/03\/david-wilcox-braving-the-emotional-weather\/","title":{"rendered":"David Wilcox: Braving the Emotional Weather"},"content":{"rendered":"

Beloved Western N.C.-based singer-songwriter David Wilcox is a prolific artist. Since releasing his debut album The Nightshift Watchman<\/i> in 1987, he has made and released some 20 records. And Wilcox has toured far and wide, bringing his thoughtful, lyrically rich folk-based music to stages across the country and beyond. Save for some inevitable enforced downtime during parts of the past two and half years, he has remained busy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had quite a good break,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was the whole first year of the pandemic.\u201d But Wilcox\u2019s idea of what constitutes a break might not be a typical one. \u201cI learned how to cook,\u201d he says. \u201cnow I can cook anything<\/i>.\u201d And in between preparing meals, he composed some music. \u201cI wrote lots of songs: probably 50!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nWhile the time away from stages paid creative dividends for Wilcox, it also served to underscore how much he missed being out on the road. \u201cI was still enjoying that \u2018introvert\u2019 time,\u201d he admits, \u201cbut I started to notice the long-term effects of crowd deprivation.\u201d He hastens to add that in this context he doesn\u2019t equate crowd<\/i> with audience<\/i>. He refers instead to the experience of \u201cbeing part of the crowd. There\u2019s something powerful about that, something we don\u2019t even have language for.\u201d<\/p>\n

But David Wilcox is a master of language, so the songs he wrote during his extended home stay keenly reflect his ruminations on big ideas. \u201cI was having a lot more philosophical time,\u201d he says, \u201ckind of pondering all the things I’m really grateful for.\u201d Some of the new songs he has composed \u2013 none of which have found their way onto release recordings as of yet \u2013 concern themselves with topics that are sure to resonate with admirers of his music.<\/p>\n

Wilcox takes a moment to look over his recent songwriting notes. \u201cThere are songs that question the sense of productivity and achievement that has always been a driving force in my life,\u201d he observes. Some of the new songs have a meta quality: \u201cThere are songs about my understanding of how I tell the story of who I am,\u201d he says. \u201cIn other words, not songs about<\/i> who I am, but songs about how I interpret that, how I tell that story.\u201d<\/p>\n

An old bit of wisdom that holds that while we can\u2019t control our surroundings, we do have the power to control our responses. David Wilcox subscribes to that philosophy, and \u2013 in true fashion \u2013 he writes about that<\/i>, as well. \u201cThere is a new song about emotional autonomy,\u201d he says, \u201cabout not being blown around by the \u2018emotional weather\u2019 that surrounds me but [instead] having a sense of my own choice about how I react to things.\u201d He says that the last couple of years have taught him a great deal about that idea. \u201cAnd that\u2019s been really cool,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Some warmly familiar themes and approaches crop up in that new batch of 50-plus songs, too. \u201cThere are a lot of songs about trying to enjoy the present moment, and then there are comical songs about spending too much time looking at a screen,\u201d Wilcox says while grabbing a furtive glace at his own computer monitor.<\/p>\n

With such a bounty of new material from which to choose, it seems inevitable that Wilcox would have another album in development. That seems especially likely in light of the fact that his output in recent years would seem to have slowed a bit: he released Blaze<\/i> in 2014, and followed up that album four years later with 2018\u2019s The View from the Edge<\/i>. The next four years would pass without a new record.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s about to change. Wilcox says that he is currently working on not one album, but several<\/i>. One of his current tasks involves sorting the songs into categories. \u201cThey fit in different groups in my imagination, so there are three different piles of songs that are \u2018percolating,\u2019\u201d he says. One of those piles features music destined for an orchestral collaboration. \u201cI’m working with the Asheville Symphony,\u201d Wilcox says, \u201cand it’s really interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n

But for David Wilcox, 2022 also marks the return of live music and time spent in the crowd. In addition to a run of live dates, he\u2019s busy planning an August Ireland retreat event Gareth Higgins and Brian Ammons. And this year sees the return of the celebrated Wilcox Weekend mini-music festival. All that means that those looking forward to a new record from the man might have to wait a bit longer.<\/p>\n

Returning to a favorite theme, Wilcox laughs and says, \u201cThere are so many factors that are out of my control, so I just keep working at it and see what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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