Jun
9
7:00pm
Sustaining Our Spirits #24 - Wes Collins, Singer/songwriter
By David LaMotte
At age 44, Wes Collins and his wife Anita made a pact to become writers: she started writing fiction and Wes penned his first song. A few years later, they were both multi-award-winners in their fields. Collins more than makes up for lost time with songs so dense with ideas that a first listen only scratches the surface.
Come for a haunting melody and some intricate fingerpicking and stay for the wit and deep literary intelligence. There is always more to find in a Wes Collins song.
Wes has played music all over the country, including performances at the Blue Bird Cafe in Nashville, TN; The Kerrville Folk Festival in Kerrville, TX; the Cary Theater in Cary, NC; and many more. He is a winner of the prestigious Grassy Hills New Folk Competition and a North Carolina Arts Council Songwriting Fellowship, and has been featured as a finalist in The Telluride Troubadour Contest in Telluride, CO, The Songwriter's Serenade Competition in Moravia, TX; and The Wildflower Performing Songwriter Contest in Dallas, TX.
Welcome to The Ether is Collins' second record. It was produced by Chris Rosser at the top of a mountain during a historic snowstorm and features guest performances by Jaimee Harris, Danny Gotham, and FJ Ventre. Welcome to The Ether finds Wes at his best: timidly falling in love in “Pelican”, coming to terms with a loved one’s disability in “Stethoscope”, or cavorting with ghosts in “Everyone Dances”. The record ends with his perennial set-closer “I Love You Guys”, as much an ode to drunken buffoonery as it is a song of gratitude to the listener.
Wes is among my favorite songwriters. Up there with folks like Pierce Pettis, Andy Gullahorn, Joni Mitchell, Tom Prasada-Rao, Carole King, and Chris Rosser. My admiration for his work led me to invite him to spend a couple of days with me at my folks' mountain cabin in Montreat so we could do some writing together. The result was the song 'You May Do That,' which is my best effort yet at artfully addressing some of the themes of my book, Worldchanging 101. Wes's version of the song is quite different from my own, and I love them equally.
It is poignant that a conversation with the co-writer of a song about non-violent resistance to institutional racism should come at a time when people across the country are rising up in numbers once again to make their voices heard on the same topic. I hope you can join us for a few songs and some subtle conversation about writing, art, and resilience.
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David LaMotte
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