We asked our colleague, Professor Denise Glover, to talk about her new album! Here’s what she had to say:
To kick off the new year, I released a new album, titled Pathways. This is my first solo album (which just means that it is a work separate from membership in my band, Rosin in the Aire). Although a “solo” album, I am incredibly indebted to the amazing musicians that joined me, including Puget Sound’s very own Professor Don Share (P&G Dept, and in several bands), who plays guitar and sings harmony on two cuts. The songs (lyrics and music) are all my own with the exception of one song (my husband wrote the lyrics for “Your Face”). We started on this project back in March of 2015, with our first recording date at David Lange Studios in April and our last in October 2015 (I did research in China during part of the summer, and we were all very busy). My producer, Julian Smedley, an accomplished musician and producer, plays impressive guitar, fiddle, and viola throughout. Also joining me was Cary Black (Kathy Kallick Band) on bass, Bob Knetzger (The Debutones) on dobro and pedal steel, Jeff Busch (multiple bands) on percussion, Ben Smith (Heart) on drums, David Lange (Pearl Django, and a Puget Sound graduate!) on accordion, and two of my bandmates from Rosin in the Aire, JP Wittman on fiddle and Allan Walton on banjo. In addition to singing, I play mandolin and guitar on the album.
As some of you may know, as an undergraduate I studied music. It was fun, but my path branched off to the study of anthropology after that and I was fully consumed. After finishing my PhD, I found a way to balance my academic and musical lives, which makes me very happy and grateful—one feeds my mind, the other my soul. Several of my songs reflect my anthropological outlook on life, from writing about the human condition, travel, love, and family, to being self-reflective about one’s own short-comings. “Deep History” is a song that starts out talking about my own family history, and then expands to talk about the history of our species, tracing back to mitochondrial Eve in Africa, and how all humans are relatives (a point too easily forgotten). I wrote “Pietracatella” after exploring my own family roots in Italy and visiting my great grand-mother’s natal village (after which the song is named). “Along the Path” came to me when I first started studying Buddhism and became interested in Asia (many years ago). A recent song I wrote, but not on the album, is titled “Medicine Man” and is inspired by the research I have done with Tibetan doctors in China’s SW.
I experienced my first live radio interview a couple of weeks ago (interesting to be on the “other” end of the interview—since we anthropologists interview people a lot of the time), and on February 19th we will be having a CD release party in Seattle at Egan’s Ballard Jam House. If you would like to learn more about my music, please visit www.deniseglovermusic.com or www.facebook.com/deniseglovermusic Here is the first cut on Pathways, one of my favorites (and Don Share plays and sings on this one): “High Plains Drifter” [here is the link to insert, to hyperlink: https://soundcloud.com/denise-glover-258307458/high-plains-drifter ]
Thanks for reading/listening!
Denise
SOAN 