Dan Wilson<br />Dan Wilson is renowned in music circles for the elegance of his melodies, the intelligence of his<br />lyrics and the purity of his voice. The onetime member of storied cult band Trip Shakespeare and<br />the critically acclaimed Semisonic is now debuting as a solo artist, working with a collective of<br />musicians from the Twin Cities and elsewhere. This new phase follows an intense period of<br />songwriting collaborations—in the past few years Wilson has written songs with the Dixie<br />Chicks, Mike Doughty, Rachael Yamagata, Jewel, Jason Mraz and others. Wilson’s recent cowriting<br />work with the Dixie Chicks earned him a “Song of the Year” Grammy® in 2007 for<br />“Not Ready To Make Nice” from the album Taking the Long Way. He co-wrote six songs on the<br />album, which won the Dixie Chicks a total of 5 Grammy® Awards, including “Album Of The<br />Year” and “Country Album Of The Year.”<br /><br />Wilson is now ready to unveil his first solo work, Free Life on American Recordings. The<br />collection of songs began as a self-produced project in Minneapolis, and was finished in Los<br />Angeles by Wilson and executive producer and label chief Rick Rubin.<br />Free Life features contributions from Sheryl Crow, who provides the harmony vocal on “Sugar”;<br />Sean Watkins (Nickel Creek), who plays the finger picked acoustic guitar on “Free Life” and<br />“Baby Doll;” and Gary Louris (the Jayhawks), who contributes a guitar solos on “Cry” and<br />“Come Home Angel.” Eric Fawcett (N.E.R.D.) plays drums on many of the tracks, and Benmont<br />Tench (Heartbreakers), provides piano on “Against History” and several others.<br />“The best thing about my album, in my opinion, is the incredibly intimate feeling it evokes,”<br />says Wilson. “These songs sound like they already existed, but at the same time, they project the<br />feeling that they’re about somebody’s life.”<br /><br />While he was writing the songs for what would become Free Life, Wilson was living in a house<br />built in 1903, and the place served both as a subtle influence on the writing and a perfect setting<br />for the recording. “I found a few books of sheet music from that era at antique stores and spent<br />lots of time singing the songs at the piano: chords and melodies the house probably hadn’t heard<br />for a hundred years,” he says. “‘Sugar’ and ‘Honey Please’ both seem to have that spirit, as<br />though they were written by the house as much as by me. When the batch became big enough, I<br />hatched a plan to borrow a recording studio and set it up in the living room and ballroom of the<br />place.<br /><br />“I’d learned a lot about digital recording over the couple of previous years, but I was determined<br />to use very little of what I’d learned,” Wilson explains. “I had just finished reading the book<br />Shakey, a biography of Neil Young, and his insistence on live recording, capturing the moment,<br />starting with the vocal, avoiding overdubs…all these things inspired the hell out of me.”<br />“For the sessions, I called about 10 musicians whose playing and personalities I love,” Wilson,<br />recalls. “We ended up playing about 20 songs live, vocals were all cut live with the band, and<br />most of the songs on the album stayed that way. I had met with the musicians separately over the<br />weeks before the sessions—taught them the songs, ran through them one-on-one, but never<br />brought the band together until the first day of recording. This made for a great vibe, because the<br />songs were very familiar, but the musicians’ ideas were new to each other. And I think that led to<br />a certain sound of the album—the songs are really about an experience of a bunch of people<br />together in a room. I think that communicates on a more soulful level.”<br />After hearing what Wilson had done on his own, Rick Rubin enthusiastically agreed to help him<br />complete the project, saying of Wilson, “Dan’s music touches my soul. He is/has the perfect<br />combination of inspiration and songcraft. He is a timeless artist whose music will feel as good in<br />50 years as it does today.”<br /><br />“When Rick and I started working together, eight of the songs were already recorded, and<br />several of them needed only a little thing here or there,” Wilson recalls. “Some of his<br />prescriptions were really subtle and helpful. On the other hand, several songs that had puzzled<br />me—’Cry,’ ‘Free Life,’ ‘Come Home Angel’ and a few others—I either re-recorded with Rick or<br />completely revamped with his help.”<br /><br />When asked about his favorite songs on Free Life, Wilson immediately names “Sugar.” “Writing<br />‘Sugar’ was everything I love about songwriting—making something profound and emotionally<br />affecting out of almost nothing,” he explains. “That song was the starting point, the song that<br />told me I had to let go of all my assumptions and methods from my bands and do something<br />completely unfamiliar.” Opening with mournful and wide-open chords from Wilson’s piano and<br />guitarist Bleu’s rolling acoustic, the recorded version of the song slowly rises to a glorious<br />bridge. The performance defines a loose, intuitively American sound that is somehow not<br />Americana. It’s a far cry from the tightly structured pop rock that Wilson has been known for in<br />the past.<br /><br />The recording of the song “All Kinds” exemplified the change to an open and unpredictable<br />recording process. “That track happened so fast, I didn’t know what hit me. One night, after a<br />long day in the ballroom, I told the remaining three musicians that tomorrow first thing we’d<br />record ‘All Kinds,’ and I sang them the song. Bleu, who’d played guitar that day, got a wild-eyed<br />look and announced that we were going to record the song right now. It was late, but we ran back<br />upstairs and put on our headphones. Ken Chastain, our percussionist, picked up a Fender bass.<br />We did three takes of the song, everyone ran out to their cars and the day was done. I didn’t<br />know that anything special had happened until the next morning when I listened back and<br />discovered we’d nailed the perfect version. And we’d done it with the spontaneous, free methods<br />I’d read about in Shakey.”<br /><br />While Free Life is in some ways a departure from Wilson’s previous work, it also perpetuates<br />certain of his tendencies—the elevated, chill-inducing melodies, the thoughtful yet<br />straightforward lyrics, the striving for honesty of expression. “I’ve always loved songwriting that<br />sounded like truth,” says Wilson, “like first-person confessions, like confidences whispered in<br />your ear. Even if I’m willing to tinker with reality and my own history, I want the song to feel<br />true.”<br /><br />More than ever before, Wilson has achieved this goal on Free Life, which serves to culminate<br />one stage of his career and initiate the next, as if he were living out the memorable payoff of his<br />song “Closing Time” - “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” There’s<br />no doubting the truth of that. www.danwilsonmusic.com http://www.imeem.com/danwilson Delta 0 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Dan Wilson Dan Wilson Artist Guest Playlsit http://www.imeem.com/danwilson/playlist/lwVqn1AT/dan-wilson-artist-guest-playlsit-music-playlist/ Thu, 15 Nov 2007 20:38:18 -0000 lvDtLXue2Y Dan Wilson http://www.imeem.com/danwilson/music/ME_SZu8r/dan-wilson-talks-and-plays-his-song-free-life-live-only-fo/ Thu, 15 Nov 2007 20:36:32 -0000 <div><a href="http://www.imeem.com/danwilson/music/ME_SZu8r/dan-wilson-talks-and-plays-his-song-free-life-live-only-fo/"><img border="0" src="http://resources-p2.imeem.com/resources/versioned/2/graphics/icons/no_album_art_100x100.png" title="Click to play this song"/></a></div> 4w_SHveNSI Dan Wilson http://www.imeem.com/danwilson/music/-n-tc4Fq/dan-wilson-talks-about-perfect-day-by-lou-reed/ Thu, 15 Nov 2007 20:36:08 -0000 <div><a href="http://www.imeem.com/danwilson/music/-n-tc4Fq/dan-wilson-talks-about-perfect-day-by-lou-reed/"><img border="0" src="http://resources-p2.imeem.com/resources/versioned/2/graphics/icons/no_album_art_100x100.png" title="Click to play this song"/></a></div> NY08Vze34n Dan Wilson http://www.imeem.com/danwilson/music/ba0N-cd-/dan-wilson-introduces-his-artist-guest-playlist/ Thu, 15 Nov 2007 20:36:08 -0000 <div><a href="http://www.imeem.com/danwilson/music/ba0N-cd-/dan-wilson-introduces-his-artist-guest-playlist/"><img border="0" src="http://resources-p2.imeem.com/resources/versioned/2/graphics/icons/no_album_art_100x100.png" title="Click to play this song"/></a></div> bzb-8R97Nn Dan Wilson http://www.imeem.com/danwilson/music/ENr_n0Ms/dan-wilson-talks-about-stay-free-by-the-clash/ Thu, 15 Nov 2007 20:36:08 -0000 <div><a href="http://www.imeem.com/danwilson/music/ENr_n0Ms/dan-wilson-talks-about-stay-free-by-the-clash/"><img border="0" src="http://resources-p2.imeem.com/resources/versioned/2/graphics/icons/no_album_art_100x100.png" title="Click to play this song"/></a></div> 6QMB6goLCo Dan Wilson http://www.imeem.com/danwilson/music/fg6-x8oG/dan-wilson-says-bye/ Thu, 15 Nov 2007 20:36:08 -0000 <div><a href="http://www.imeem.com/danwilson/music/fg6-x8oG/dan-wilson-says-bye/"><img border="0" src="http://resources-p2.imeem.com/resources/versioned/2/graphics/icons/no_album_art_100x100.png" title="Click to play this song"/></a></div> 2bOzoD0WNc Dan Wilson http://www.imeem.com/danwilson/music/6ICY54uj/dan-wilson-talks-about-sugar-mountain-by-neil-young/ Thu, 15 Nov 2007 20:36:08 -0000 <div><a href="http://www.imeem.com/danwilson/music/6ICY54uj/dan-wilson-talks-about-sugar-mountain-by-neil-young/"><img border="0" src="http://resources-p2.imeem.com/resources/versioned/2/graphics/icons/no_album_art_100x100.png" title="Click to play this song"/></a></div> zM4_b2jBU- Dan Wilson http://www.imeem.com/danwilson/music/bqUPXk2J/dan-wilson-talks-about-no-surrender-bruce-springstein/ Thu, 15 Nov 2007 20:36:08 -0000 <div><a href="http://www.imeem.com/danwilson/music/bqUPXk2J/dan-wilson-talks-about-no-surrender-bruce-springstein/"><img border="0" src="http://resources-p2.imeem.com/resources/versioned/2/graphics/icons/no_album_art_100x100.png" title="Click to play this song"/></a></div> STxd1jyJpz Dan Wilson http://www.imeem.com/danwilson/music/6SAPs-TD/dan-wilson-talks-about-get-together-by-the-youngbloods/ Thu, 15 Nov 2007 20:36:08 -0000 <div><a href="http://www.imeem.com/danwilson/music/6SAPs-TD/dan-wilson-talks-about-get-together-by-the-youngbloods/"><img border="0" src="http://resources-p2.imeem.com/resources/versioned/2/graphics/icons/no_album_art_100x100.png" title="Click to play this song"/></a></div> Gs08lDKlmk Dan Wilson http://www.imeem.com/danwilson/music/WPlBCgaB/dan-wilson-talks-about-unravel-by-bjork/ Thu, 15 Nov 2007 20:36:08 -0000 <div><a href="http://www.imeem.com/danwilson/music/WPlBCgaB/dan-wilson-talks-about-unravel-by-bjork/"><img border="0" src="http://resources-p2.imeem.com/resources/versioned/2/graphics/icons/no_album_art_100x100.png" title="Click to play this song"/></a></div> 36FbixrLBn