To say Steve Dawson is ambitious would be a huge understatement, as he embarks on a journey of releasing not one, not two, but three albums this year. The first, Gone, Long Gone is due March 18th. The title track is the fourth to be released ahead of the album and today, WMOT premieres a new video for the song.
A little about Steve Dawson, who you may recognize if you’ve seen Birds of Chicago perform as he’s toured with them for years... Dawson hosts and produces the “Music Makers and Soul Shakers” podcast, is a guitarist, composer and seven-time Juno Award-winning musician. He’s a Vancouver native who’s been calling Nashville home for nearly a decade now. Guests on Gone, Long Gone include former tour mate Allison Russell (Birds of Chicago, Our Native Daughters), Fats Kaplin (John Prine, Jack White, Paul Burch) and others.
The song, “Gone, Long Gone” was written by Steve Dawson and Matt Patershuk and along with the lead vocal, Dawson plays guitars and pedal steel. Fellow Canadian and Juno award winner, Ben Plotnick (also now a Nashvillian) arranged and recorded the strings. That’s Ben on violins and viola and Kaitlyn Raitz on cello. Ben and Kaitlyn have a duo project called Oliver the Crow here in Nashville.
On the song's beginnings and its evolution, Dawson remarked, “This is a simple folk song, inspired by the music of guitar players like Brownie McGhee and Big Bill Broonzy, players that I’ve studied in depth. The instrumental sections veer off into more discordant territory though, which is something I’ve always enjoyed playing around with.”
As for the visuals, Dawson said, "The lyric video was created by my friend Keri Latimer, a wonderful singer and songwriter from Winnipeg. She sings on one of my records too. I asked her to make a video, which she’d never done before, and I believe most, or all, of the footage came from a summer road trip she took with her family last year across the Canadian prairies. I thought it matched the imagery of the song perfectly."
Listen for “Gone, Long Gone” on the Local Brew Hour this Sunday morning at 89.5 WMOT or wmot.org. The Local Brew Hour airs Sundays at 8am, replays Mondays at 7pm and recent episodes are available On Demand at wmot.org.
“Gone, Long Gone”
