{"id":26863,"date":"2024-02-16T05:30:19","date_gmt":"2024-02-16T10:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=26863"},"modified":"2024-01-26T14:13:02","modified_gmt":"2024-01-26T19:13:02","slug":"david-wilcoxs-guided-touring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/16\/david-wilcoxs-guided-touring\/","title":{"rendered":"David Wilcox’s Guided Touring"},"content":{"rendered":"

While many artists express serious reservations about the Spotify music streaming platform \u2013 and with good reason \u2013 North Carolina-based singer-songwriter David Wilcox has taken a different approach: he\u2019s embracing some of the platform\u2019s opportunities for flexibility. His latest album \u2013 My Good Friends<\/i>, something like his 20th<\/sup> studio release \u2013 came out last August in CD and download formats. But the streaming version bears the subtitle The Guided Tour<\/i>, and features interstitial narration from Wilcox.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love that Spotify has this ability to share a whole other version of the record,\u201d he explains. \u201cIt\u2019s not just the songs one after another; there\u2019s room for me to introduce each song.\u201d The Guided Tour<\/i> configuration of the album allows Wilcox to set the songs up, providing backstories. He says that the narrative framing provides a metaphorical three-dimensional setting for each of his up-close-and-personal tunes. \u201cThat way,\u201d he says, the listener can \u201cdiscover each song with a certain emotional momentum and focus.\u201d The resulting experience creates an intimate atmosphere akin to a house concert.<\/p>\n

\"\"

David Wilcox (photo by Lynne Harty)<\/p><\/div>\n

Wilcox admits that the process of creating those narrative connective bits was itself a journey of discovery for him as an artist. \u201cWhen I started to walk myself through the songs, it was like looking through a journal,\u201d he explains. He found himself reflecting on questions: \u201cWhat have the past couple of years been about for me? What have I learned? What have I struggled with? Where have I found my hope? Why did this song come? What is it trying to tell me?\u201d Wilcox admits that in some cases, he found that his newest songs revealed depth he hadn\u2019t appreciated until that moment. \u201cAnd that,\u201d he says with a smile, \u201cwas really fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not at all surprisingly for an artist whose reputation is built upon the warm give-and-take that is found in intimate performances, Wilcox says that conceiving the spoken-word introductory pieces for My Good Friends (The Guided Tour)<\/i> informed the manner in which he presents those songs in concert. Conjuring a reference from the not-wholly-unrelated discipline of stage acting, Wilcox says that he has always appreciated the idea of subtext, \u201cthat whole Stanislavski theater thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

And he applies that \u201cart of experiencing\u201d method acting approach to public performance. \u201cYou know the line you\u2019re going to say or sing,\u201d he explains. \u201cSo you don\u2019t need to think about that. Instead, you think about why<\/i> you\u2019re saying it.\u201d Connecting with the meaning of a song as he sings takes him back to the thoughts and feelings at its core. \u201cIf a song moves me, it moves me because it\u2019s coming from the place I want to go emotionally,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

On occasion, if rarely, Wilcox writes a song that\u2019s somehow too personal to share widely. \u201cThere are one or two of my songs that I don\u2019t play,\u201d he admits, \u201cfor the sake of the people who are in those songs.\u201d But when it comes to opening up his own inner world, everything is fair game. \u201cI\u2019m happy to share anything about me<\/i>,\u201d he says. And that openness is a key to the emotional resonance of Wilcox\u2019s music. \u201cEarly on, I came to this idea: If you\u2019re willing to share almost<\/i> everything, you\u2019re vulnerable,\u201d he says. \u201cBut if you share everything<\/i>, then you\u2019re safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like many touring musicians, David Wilcox found himself with time on his hands during the pandemic. Some of that time was inevitably spent reflecting on the pros and cons of a life on the road. And Wilcox arrived at a decisive conclusion. \u201cI love touring more than ever now,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd I think that\u2019s because I\u2019m doing it for different reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some musicians are out there for the return on their investment, \u201cfor the get-back,\u201d he says. \u201cThey\u2019re investing their time and money, thinking that [touring] will pay off. They\u2019re assuming that the struggle will eventually give them the success that will nurture their self-image and make them feel like this time of questioning, doubt and struggle was worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Wilcox says that he never approached touring with that set of assumptions and goals. For him, such an approach would have represented \u201csort of taking out a loan on my self image against the future,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd pretty soon I\u2019d be paying interest.\u201d Instead, the David Wilcox brand of touring is built upon a fundamentally different idea. \u201cI always wanted to make it so if I [knew I] was going to die next year, I would still choose to do this. It [would be] worth it just for now<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n

In practice, that means that touring is characterized by an easygoing informality. \u201cWhen I’m setting up a tour, instead of \u2013 for example \u2013 getting a string of hotels up the west coast, I just call friends and say, \u2018Hey, I\u2019m going to be in town on such-and-such,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cThese people will come to the show, and then we\u2019ll come back, sit and sip tea and talk about stuff, and then go for a walk in the morning.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that, says David Wilcox, \u201cfeels like community.\u201d Because it is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While many artists express serious reservations about the Spotify music streaming platform \u2013 and with good reason \u2013 North Carolina-based singer-songwriter David Wilcox has taken a different approach: he\u2019s embracing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26864,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,41,49],"tags":[3473],"class_list":["post-26863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-folk","category-interview","category-new-release","tag-david-wilcox","cat-30-id","cat-41-id","cat-49-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26863"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26865,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26863\/revisions\/26865"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}