CD BIOS
Out Beyond Ideas
David Wilcox/Nance Pettit Biography
After a total of 12 albums released between them, 11 for David (4 on A&M Records, 3 on Koch Records, 2 on Vanguard Records, and 2 on What Are Records?) www.davidwilcox.com, and 1 for Nance, 1995's Skin and Water, (Fresh Baked Records), it seemed somewhat inevitable that eventually they would do one together.
But they tell the story best:
"This is the blossom. It's what all your music has been leading toward." These words surprised us, but we couldn't deny the way these poems seemed to mysteriously bloom into music. When we sang them for our friend Rich Hordinski who had produced David's most recent CD, he said that he would love to work on this next one. We said that we didn't have any plans to record the poems, they were just an offshoot of our love of singing together.
Someone had given us a collection of mystic poetry for Christmas, and in the evenings by the fire when our son was in bed, we had fun finding melody and chords that seemed to open up the meaning of these ancient poems. The arrangements evolved through singing them together round and round as we switched harmonies. The way they came to life was remarkable.
As the months went by, we had more and more poems ready to sing for friends. It became our private musings with the mystics in the midst of our busy day-to-day living. The process always surprises us, as if by climbing into these poems, they begin to show us the way they want to be written. Now they are beginning to show us how they want to be
recorded.
Friends kept asking when could they hear it on CD? They offered to help. Great musicians offered to play on it, including drummer Bill Kreutzman of the Grateful Dead. Wow, this is clearly bigger than us. We got a strong feeling that this should not be for profit. These poems would live longer than we would, as they had already outlived forty generations before us.
We imagined that the work these poems do in the world is measured not in units sold, but in centuries, and with that perspective, we wanted to donate our time and money and creativity to help that work.
These poems are from many traditions, including poems of Saint Francis of Assisi , Sufi Mystics Jalaludin Rumi and Shams-ud-din Muhammad Hafiz, Rabia of Basra and poems from Jewish Mystical Poets Judiah Halevi and Solomon ibn Gabriol Uvavnuk, an Netsilik Inuit, Tukarum from India, and the Zen poets Dogen Kigen and Wu-men Hui-K'ai. As we sang the poetry of Jewish, Sufi, Christian, Hindu and Zen Buddhist mystics, we heard a common voice in their direct experiences with God. The language was very intimate, passionate, and present tense, using fresh images from everyday life. In a world where there is so much pain and hatred between these religious groups, these poems spoke of a shared experience of a LOVE bigger than all that.
The words of many poets go together well and the recording speaks with one voice. We wanted this collection to support a greater understanding of our common ground as humans seeking the divine, so we looked for an organization with a matching purpose to receive the proceeds. Our partner / beneficiary organization is Center for International Development and Conflict Management based out of the University of Maryland which works with local partners in vulnerable, high-risk countries around the world to help them build a sustainable, just and inclusive peace. Finding common ground across cultural, religious, ethnic and political divides, allows partners to collaborate to address human needs and promote constructive change. www.cidcm.umd.edu
Both Nance and David are taking a detour from their recent lives as a result of selling their home, many of their belongings and hitting the road with their 12 year old son, Nathan, for 18 months of travel in their Airstream trailer, pulled by their bio diesel truck, which has been modified to use waste vegetable oil as fuel. While traveling they plan to seek a new place to make a home upon the end of their travels; at which time Nance will return to her most recent vocation, acupuncture (www.nancepettit.com). She has had a wide range of previous vocations, such as psychotherapy, massage/body work, kayak instructing, river guiding and the aforementioned music efforts.
During their travels, they will be performing these mystic poems at select shows around the country to spread the word on this project. David will continue to tour as before doing solo shows comprised of music from his past releases as well as songs from an upcoming new release as well.
After a total of 12 albums released between them, 11 for David (4 on A&M Records, 3 on Koch Records, 2 on Vanguard Records, and 2 on What Are Records?) www.davidwilcox.com, and 1 for Nance, 1995's Skin and Water, (Fresh Baked Records), it seemed somewhat inevitable that eventually they would do one together.
But they tell the story best:
"This is the blossom. It's what all your music has been leading toward." These words surprised us, but we couldn't deny the way these poems seemed to mysteriously bloom into music. When we sang them for our friend Rich Hordinski who had produced David's most recent CD, he said that he would love to work on this next one. We said that we didn't have any plans to record the poems, they were just an offshoot of our love of singing together.
Someone had given us a collection of mystic poetry for Christmas, and in the evenings by the fire when our son was in bed, we had fun finding melody and chords that seemed to open up the meaning of these ancient poems. The arrangements evolved through singing them together round and round as we switched harmonies. The way they came to life was remarkable.
As the months went by, we had more and more poems ready to sing for friends. It became our private musings with the mystics in the midst of our busy day-to-day living. The process always surprises us, as if by climbing into these poems, they begin to show us the way they want to be written. Now they are beginning to show us how they want to be
recorded.
Friends kept asking when could they hear it on CD? They offered to help. Great musicians offered to play on it, including drummer Bill Kreutzman of the Grateful Dead. Wow, this is clearly bigger than us. We got a strong feeling that this should not be for profit. These poems would live longer than we would, as they had already outlived forty generations before us.
We imagined that the work these poems do in the world is measured not in units sold, but in centuries, and with that perspective, we wanted to donate our time and money and creativity to help that work.
These poems are from many traditions, including poems of Saint Francis of Assisi , Sufi Mystics Jalaludin Rumi and Shams-ud-din Muhammad Hafiz, Rabia of Basra and poems from Jewish Mystical Poets Judiah Halevi and Solomon ibn Gabriol Uvavnuk, an Netsilik Inuit, Tukarum from India, and the Zen poets Dogen Kigen and Wu-men Hui-K'ai. As we sang the poetry of Jewish, Sufi, Christian, Hindu and Zen Buddhist mystics, we heard a common voice in their direct experiences with God. The language was very intimate, passionate, and present tense, using fresh images from everyday life. In a world where there is so much pain and hatred between these religious groups, these poems spoke of a shared experience of a LOVE bigger than all that.
The words of many poets go together well and the recording speaks with one voice. We wanted this collection to support a greater understanding of our common ground as humans seeking the divine, so we looked for an organization with a matching purpose to receive the proceeds. Our partner / beneficiary organization is Center for International Development and Conflict Management based out of the University of Maryland which works with local partners in vulnerable, high-risk countries around the world to help them build a sustainable, just and inclusive peace. Finding common ground across cultural, religious, ethnic and political divides, allows partners to collaborate to address human needs and promote constructive change. www.cidcm.umd.edu
Both Nance and David are taking a detour from their recent lives as a result of selling their home, many of their belongings and hitting the road with their 12 year old son, Nathan, for 18 months of travel in their Airstream trailer, pulled by their bio diesel truck, which has been modified to use waste vegetable oil as fuel. While traveling they plan to seek a new place to make a home upon the end of their travels; at which time Nance will return to her most recent vocation, acupuncture (www.nancepettit.com). She has had a wide range of previous vocations, such as psychotherapy, massage/body work, kayak instructing, river guiding and the aforementioned music efforts.
During their travels, they will be performing these mystic poems at select shows around the country to spread the word on this project. David will continue to tour as before doing solo shows comprised of music from his past releases as well as songs from an upcoming new release as well.
