Story Behind The Song

In composing for this album, I wanted to write a feature piece for each of my four friends that would bring out the best of their individual styles. "Lonely Tree" was meant as a feature for Dave Edwards on electric bass. Once, during a solo trip to the Grand Canyon, I watched a dynamic sunset along the south rim. In the foreground, away from the rest of the plants and brush, and toward the edge of the rim, was the silhouette of a lone tree with a most intriguing and deep personality. If it could have communicated with me, I wondered what stories of the breathtaking, but lonely, wilderness my companion would have shared. With the exception of the electric bass, I purposefully stuck to acoustic instruments for this piece: The nylon string guitar, acoustic bass, and simple percussion items provide the kind of southwestern, almost Spanish/Mexican, backdrop of the Arizona landscape around the canyon. It is no accident that I chose mainly wooden percussion instruments, such as tuned temple blocks, a wood block, and claves, to further help paint the image. And I think there couldn't have been a more appropriate instrument to represent the tree's "voice" than the electric bass. Nor, in my mind, could there have been a more appropriate musician than Dave Edwards to bring out the emotion in a way that truly speaks. What stories does the tree tell you?