Black Hearted Fox is the culmination of my many years of work as a musician and songwriter. It is the most recent version of me trying to get the 100 or so song’s I’ve written over the years organized into a coherent form so I can perform them for people.
There has always been a little sadness in the music I’ve written, as it mostly just gets finished and then put away, never to see the light of day again once I’ve gotten done writing and arranging it. I’ve always thought that if I just had enough time, then maybe I’d be able to get this work out into the world.
There have always been “reasons” for avoiding doing that work. For one, I’ve always had a comfortable job and needed to maintain it so I could care for myself and the folks in my life. For another, I felt like a lot of what I wanted to share with the world wasn’t well formed.
To the first point, I’m finally at a point where I have enough little music gigs to keep me playing (or at least engineering other folks’ playing) enough I don’t need the gig to survive but if I want to thrive I need to actually book some gigs. I’m increasingly on my own, having to support kids and partners less and less, so it’s less of an imposition to anyone if I am on the road.
To the second point, I am starting to feel like I have useful, caring things to say to the world. I feel like I’ve got enough perspective that “sharing” would be more than just processing my own thoughts, more than just figuring out what I need to say. I feel like I’ve learned some things which cost me a lot, and maybe sending those ideas out will help other folks avoid some of the struggles I’ve gone through.
All that is to say, like many of the websites, this is a prayer: that I might be able to focus long enough, that people will find the work resonant, that my meanings might be heard.
