There’s the stretch of 67 heading out of Fort Stockton, Texas, towards Alpine, and then onward to Marfa as 67 meets up with reliable old 90. The last zigzagging mile of the Million Dollar Highway that drops out of the mountains and into the box canyon that hems Ouray, Colorado in on three sides. And of course, turning onto my street after a long string of shows, knowing that my home is only a few seconds away.

These ribbons of blacktop hold a special place in my heart for a few reasons– but each of them has a solitary moment contained in their navigation that I look forward to most: a view, a memory, a home.

Making a record is a lot like driving on one of my favorite roads. It’s an enjoyable trip from start to finish, but there’s that one single point that really serves as the icing on the cake no matter how often you set sail. That point in the record-making process, for me, is when I get to share it with all of you.

I started driving down the comforting curves of Wide Listener when we walked into the studio a few weeks ago, and with the recording complete I know that I’m getting closer to that moment to which I so look forward.

The tricky thing about these favorite drives of mine is keeping to the speed limit. If I rushed through the entire journey just to arrive at the Pieces de Resistance, well, I might as well just tack a photograph to the wall and look at it whenever I pleased. I think you get my drift– the sights are pretty enough, but without taking in the trip as a whole, they’re just pushpins in a map. More jealousy-inspiring postcards received from a globetrotting friend then they are personal connections, and it’s the personal connections that truly make them.

And in this case– in the case of Wide Listener, I mean– if I didn’t make the entire journey myself (and with the help of the wonderfully talented people who have helped me in the studio), the final presentation would probably sound something like a few notes jotted on the back of those postcards rather than the recounting of a particularly memorable personal experience.

So, I’m out here on this metaphorical road, steaming along with my penultimate destination getting closer in my windshield.

I guess this is a longwinded way of saying that, as much as I wish I could share this record with all of you right now, I still have some miles to drive until I can do so. I’ve taken this road a few times before, though, and just like I look forward to the points on those aforementioned drives that I love so much, I look forward to getting to share with all of you what I’ve been putting so much time and effort into.

We’re getting closer.

Red River Songwriters’ Festival

Thursday January 24^th – Saturday January 26^th, 2013

 ———————————————————–

Thursday, January 24th

 Lost Love Saloon – 400 E. Main St.

8:00 – 8:45 – Mike Addington, Drew Kennedy

9:00 – 9:45 – Kelley Mickwee, Brandy Zdan

10:00 – 10:45 – Susan Gibson, Josh Grider

  ———————————————————–

Friday, January 25th

 The Ski Chalet – Red River Ski Area

 12:00 – 12:30 – Kelley Mickwee

12:45 – 1:15 – Drew Kennedy

 The Lift House – 200 Pioneer Rd.

 2:00 – 2:30 – Brandy Zdan

2:45 – 3:15 – Susan Gibson

3:30 – 4:00 – Josh Grider

 Lost Love Saloon – 400 E. Main St.

 4:30 – 5:15 – Walt Wilkins

5:30 – 6:15 – Kelley Mickwee

6:30 – 7:15 – Susan Gibson

7:30 – 8:15 – Mike Addington

 The Motherlode – 410 E. Main St.

 9:00 – The Red River Show (the whole gang!)

11:00 – Two Dollar Horse

  ———————————————————–

 Saturday, January 26th

 Bloody Mary Morning – Lost Love Saloon – 400 E. Main St.

 10:00 AM – Walt Wilkins

 The Ski Chalet – Red River Ski Area

 12:00 – 12:30 – Josh Grider

12:45 – 1:15 – Brandy Zdan

 The Lift House – 200 Pioneer Rd.

 2:00 – 2:45 – Drew Kennedy

3:00 – 3:45 – Kelley Mickwee

 Wine and Music of New Mexico — The Motherlode – 410 E. Main St.

 4:00 – 5:00 – Josh Grider and Jana Pochop, with Josh Ragsdale, Sommelier, Pecos Flavors Winery / Artist Meet and Greet

 The Lost Love Saloon – 400 E. Main St.

 5:00 – 5:45 – Mike Addington

6:00 – 6:45 – Drew Kennedy, Brandy Zdan

7:00 – 7:45 – Susan Gibson, Walt Wilkins

 The Motherlode – 410 E. Main St.

 8:30 – The Red River Show (the whole gang!)

10:30 – Ray Wylie Hubbard

 lineup, like the weather, is always subject to change

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

I wanted to drop you a line to keep you up to date with a big development on the new music front over here at the Kennedy Headquarters. Today I launched a 30-day Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for the recording and release of my sixth album Wide Listener.

What is Kickstarter, you ask?

The company describes it as follows:

Kickstarter is a funding platform for creative projects. Everything from films, games, and music to art, design, and technology. Kickstarter is full of ambitious, innovative, and imaginative projects that are brought to life through the direct support of others.

Really, it’s a way for creative people (like me) to raise funds in order to see that a concept (in this case, a new album) becomes a reality. Simply speaking, it’s like pre-ordering something you’re interested in getting, with several levels of bonuses added to the product depending on how much you believe in that thing.

But enough of me telling you all of this in an email– we’ve created a video on the kickstarter page to explain it in more detail.

It is my hope that you will support me as I take my next step in my career, as you’ve always supported me in the past.

For that, I can’t thank you enough.

So, thank you.

Drew Kennedy

The idea: to start a small, intimate, fun little music festival where songwriters and fans alike can mix and mingle, hang and hear, ski and sing among the high pines and snowflakes that make wintertime in northern New Mexico so magical.

Songwriters arrived. People arrived. Snow arrived. Music, of course, arrived. And so, a good thing started.

We had such a good time last year that we (the we: Susan Gibson, Kelley Mickwee, Josh Grider, Brandy Zdan, Mike Addington, and Rick Fowler) decided to do it again this year. And we’ve added a few of our friends to the mix– Ray Wylie Hubbard and Walt Wilkins.

We loved putting this on last year, and I have a feeling we’ll love it just as much this year. I hope you’ll see what we’re doing as something cool– as something fun and valuable. That’s how we see it. We want it to be valuable artistically, but also affordable for people to attend– I dare you to find a festival with this much talent on its line up with prices this small: $20 – $40.

So, don’t just make plans to attend. Don’t decide to check it out. Make plans to be a part of this with us.

Here’s the details:

What: The 2nd Red River Songwrtiers’ Festival

When: Thursday, January 24th to Saturday January 26th, 2013.

Where: Red River, New Mexico

Who: Ray Wylie Hubbard, Walt Wilkins, Susan Gibson, Kelley Mickwee, Josh Grider, Brandy Zdan, Drew Kennedy, Mike Addington, and Rick Fowler.

Web: redriversongs.com  (be sure to check out the link to the list of available lodging for your trip, too!) also: follow twitter and Facebook pages for updates

Tickets: are available through the website or directly HERE.

Join us in January– after all, there wouldn’t have been a first festival, and then a second festival… or really any of us making a living as songwriters if you want to get to the core of what we do… if it wasn’t for you.

“It’ll be like a road trip,” he said, “but we’ll actually get something out of it other than hangovers and speeding tickets.”

His idea was this:

Route our way from Las Vegas to New Braunfels with a small film crew to shoot a video for my song Stars in California.

Needless to say, I was in.

I was planning on writing a lengthy post about how this video was created, but as I sit here I realize that I should probably let it speak for itself.

Thanks to Andrew, Gary Huff, and Eliot Gurrin for doing the creative heavy lifting.

Thanks to my friend Jimmy Lee and the fine craftsmen at Jeys Custom Saddlery  in San Angelo for the fantastic guitar strap.

And finally– thanks to the people, the places, the weather, the stars, and just about everything else that played a role in setting a beautiful backdrop upon which to film.

So, here you go:

They make sense, you know? Because honestly, who can really say they’re someones favorite at anything with complete and utter certainty? Not me– no way. I’d never be that brash.

Second favorite? Okay. That works.

It’s humble, and it’s probably true.

Honesty and humility are good things– they’re good qualities to have, and I think people respond to those types of things.

So, just how humble and honest am I in regards to this whole Second Favorite thing?

Well, a few weeks ago I competed in the prestigious Troubadour Competition at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival in Telluride, Colorado.

And I finished second. 

TRUTH AND HUMILITY EMBODIED IN COMPETITION!

—–

Thank you, dear reader, for allowing me to entertain myself with the sentences above. And now, your regularly scheduled blog

—-

So, yes, I went to Telluride to participate in a songwriting competition. No, I’ve never entered a contest like that before. Yes, I find the notion of competition through song– through something that I personally feel compelled to compose on a regular basis… something that I would feel compelled to compose even if the rest of the world suddenly lost the ability to hear music– to be an abstract concept. And no, I didn’t win. I finished in second place (out of around 500 entrants, and eventually the top 10)– thus the little t-shirt diatribe above.

And it was awesome.

I don’t really care that I didn’t win– the nine other finalists were fantastically talented and wonderfully kind and deserving of victory– I was just hoping to find a little musical camaraderie in a foreign land.

And in that quest, ladies and gentleman, I succeeded.

My fellow competitors were awesome. They were friendly, determined, focused, and all-out great writers. Some of them were veterans of the road, while others only gig from time to time. Some were older than me. Some were younger than me. All were wonderful. A guy named Reed Waddle won. I called his victory after hearing his first song. You should check him out– he’s quite good and I think you’d like his music very much.

And then came the people behind the competition– the folks at Planet Bluegrass. They were supportive, and funny, and kind. I loved each and every one of them.

And then came the festival attendees…

These people are truly the stars of the festival.

I arrived with my camping gear in hand on a Wednesday afternoon. After taking several laps around the campground, weaving in between groups of people camping in tiny centralized locations, I finally stopped to weigh my options.

I could set up my gear in one of the few open areas I saw– among rocks or in places that didn’t get shade all day– or I could… I could… I wonder if maybe I didn’t see the entire campgrou–

“Hey!”

I looked up.

“You looking for a place to set up your tent?”

I nodded, and then I remembered something that the festival staff had told me in an email– tell people that you’re in the Troubadour Competition and they’ll do anything to help you.

“I’m in the Troubadour Contest,” I said.

“RIGHT THERE,” the man pointed. “You put your stuff right there. You’re camping with us.”

And that was it. The man’s name was Bevin, and he was for all intents and purposes the group leader of one of these aforementioned camps (this camp was called Kamp Duk Tape). There were about 20 people, all of whom had been coming to the Bluegrass Festival for quite some time, who were a part of the camp.

And they were awesome.

They came to each of my 6 performances throughout the festival. They treated me like I, too, had been coming to the festival and camping with them for years. They offered me food and drinks and jokes and encouragement and high fives and just about anything else you might imagine. Basically– if they had it, it was mine.

I came well stocked, of course, but their generosity was endless.

So, there I was– in one of the most beautiful towns in Colorado, hearing four days of some of the best music being heard anywhere, meeting 9 other troubadours and enjoying their talents, feeling completely accepted by a group of strangers, AND I finished second.

Yeah, right– second. Ha!

It’s a wonderful event that pits some of the best songwriters in the world against one another in a six-round, steel-cage submission match.

Wait, what?

Oh, check that. Turns out it’s a songwriting competition.

I guess I can pull back on my gym work a little bit.

All jokes aside, this is a wonderful honor, and if I can be honest with you, it’s still slightly unbelievable to me. I’m looking forward to meeting the nine other fantastic songwriters that I’ll be competing against, and I’m really looking forward to taking in the entire experience. I’ve never been lucky enough to attend the festival in Telluride before, and I can’t think of a better way to cross it off my list.

If you’d like to check out the competition lineup, you can do so by clicking here.

Here’s to music!

dk

I wear glasses.

I also have a beard.

Now, I have glasses and a beard on a t-shirt. Click HERE to become the coolest person on your block– the link takes you to my online store, where you can buy my wearable glasses and beard. All of my older t-shirts have also been added to the store for your shopping pleasure (at a huge discount!).

Koozies too!

High Five!

***Thursday– Arivals

Mutual support would abound, and kinship would light my way.

Thanks to people like Peter Dawson, that was true. He was (and continues to be) a great friend to me when I first arrived in New Braunfels. If he had a show on the books, I could open it. If I needed a band to back me up, he talked his talented group of guys into playing with me, often times pulling double duty if we were on the same bill.

To a wider extent, the kinship I sought was somewhat of a blue heron. Sure, at one point the fabled Compound existed behind River Road Ice House, but I was a little late to that party, and most of the guys who were a part of that nightly ritual of campfire-and-song had successfully moved on to other things.

At first, I was a little hurt by the notion that, with the exception of Peter, it seemed like it was every man for himself… at least from my outsider point of view.

In retrospect, having one loyal ally was all I could have ever asked for. In many ways, it was all I needed to get things off the ground. A younger me labored with a bit of a chip on his shoulder because of the absence of this widespread kinship, the fable of which had drawn me some 1,600 miles from my hometown. I know now that my chipped shoulder was the embodiment of immaturity in its purest form, and I’m glad that none of my resulting “forget these guys, I don’t need them” bravado didn’t do any long-lasting harm to my ability to work within the amazing structure of artistic freedom and monetary potential that fans and musicians alike had created long before I arrived in this wonderful state.

It took me a good seven years to realize it, but I’m proud to say that the aforementioned fable of kinship ended up to be no kind of fable at all. It’s real.

Two weeks ago I played a few shows with some of my closest musical friends– friends who, because of shared artistic struggles, and likewise, shared artistic appreciation, have become the closest thing to family for me that the absence of a shared bloodline can allow. I’m humbled to think that I am accepted among such a group of astoundingly talented people.

And they’re not just talented. They’re going places.

Josh Grider‘s name is now officially secured among the list of legends and workhorses alike who have recorded a set as a part of the Live At Billy Bob’s brand of releases. I was honored when he asked me to sing on a song that we wrote together at the show, and that honor strikes deeper still as the resulting album has now seen the light of day. He deserves the recognition that this will bring him to the fullest extent.

Jason Eady is a few months away from releasing his stellar AM Country Heaven, which I fully expect will land him the widespread acclaim that a person with his talent deserves. He’s quiet, introspective, and sharply intelligent in person. The latter two qualities remain the focal points of his music, but he’s anything but quiet on stage. His voice is one that is impossible to ignore.

Jamie Wilson and Kelley Mickwee, one half of The Trishas, are as talented as they come– writers and songbirds both. With an album in the can and its release on the not-too-distant horizon, it’ll be a point of immense pride and pleasure to show my grandchildren pictures of me on stage with them in our younger days.

Walt Wilkins, who influenced my writing going back to my days as a big-dreaming college kid with his unmatched sense of poetic melody, has become a trusted friend while managing to maintain an influential role in my continuing development as a writer. Trust me on this: that doesn’t usually happen. Elevating someone to the ranks of a hero almost certainly means that, should the two of you ever get the chance to meet, disappointment will be close at hand. It’s tough for a human being to live up to the lofty standards you’ve crafted for them when you’ve not yet actually met– you see it all the time in the shape of professional athletes, political figures, and adults in general– but that’s never been the case with Walt. He’s actually a better person, and continues to become a better songwriter with each new and finely-crafted tune he writes, than I ever imagined that he would be. He has a new album on the way as well.

Susan Gibson is perhaps one of the most gracious people I’ve ever met. She has every right to rest on the laurels of her accomplishments, casting someone like me off with a smile and a handshake should she have other things on her mind, yet she’s more humble and more caring than a lot of people I know who have experienced one tenth of her success. She logs as many miles as anyone I know out there on the road, and I can’t tell you how much I respect her for that.

The sound of Rodney Hayden‘s voice when you finally get to hear it in person is one of the most miraculous things on the planet. How something so big, so righteously country, can emanate from a person of his size remains a mystery to me. If vocal prowess equaled physical size, he should be ten feet tall. He’s an intense songwriter, too. Prior to working with him on his stellar Tavern of Poets album, he rattled off four incredible songs in the two days leading up to its recording. It would have taken me at least four months to do what he did in all of 48 hours. He has a new live album out– just him on his guitar and David Beck on upright bass– and the songs sound as big and alive as if it were a full production.

And there are a bunch of other people with whom I’ve been able to share the road and the stage– people whom it would take me all day to mention. They’re all immensely talented, but moreover, they’re all wonderful people.

I can’t tell you how lucky I am.

Some of the people I mentioned above will be joining me in Red River, New Mexico at the beginning of March for a few days of fellowship and song. Some of the people I’ll see in the next couple of weeks, some of them perhaps not at all for quite some time. All of them, though, have become one thing to me:

My family.

So, that notion of the music community down here in Texas being one big, happy family? It ended up being spot on. It just didn’t end up involving the people that I thought it would.

And I am so, so, SO thankful for that.

You don’t get to pick your family.

I didn’t know most of the members of this, my musical family, before I moved here nearly eight years ago, and that was for the absolute best. We each found our way into this loose group by sharing a few common bonds– it means something when you let mutual admiration and the organic nature of discovery take the helm.

And those bonds?

They ended up being a lot stronger– and more important– than the ones I imagined some 1,600 miles ago could have ever been.