Lakatos Marton
Thank you Don,🙏 It's soo good to listen to your music...This album really feels like a glass of fresh water, to my thirsty soul. 😊
Marton
Favorite track: Stained Glass.
Small windows
Looking outward
Show me a sequined sky
Rubies shine in my glass of wine
Dusk breezes
On oiled water
Paint a pointillist facade
It's a ceaselessly shifting world
Like today I'm far away
I see your face behind each dust-blurred pane
Strings vibrate
Music leaps out
In a shimmering intrigue
Words unsaid whirl away like dust
From the sidewalk-sweeper's broom
Across a fold in space you touch my hand
this frozen road winds on past nameless towns
a river of black carved through a desert of white
promises of silver lead me from the hearth
lifeless side roads lead past laden trees
breath of ice takes its toll, my chariot
only an hour gone, still four to go
we clamber onto hired wheels back through the white curtain
no line to guide us, only shadows of steel
life is the song and the show must go on and on
make it come true
life is the song and the road goes on and on
paint this song any colour but blue
eyes ears and hands reach out, meet the sound
warm in the evening glow, the welcome fire
the gift is given, the seed is sown
now back through darkness to the light of home
Water can be a source of calm and healing for many people, and singer-songwriter Don Ross is no exception. In fact, looking out his window at St. Margaret’s Bay, and rowing across it on a skiff with his dog, were the things that kept him most balanced and centered during the pandemic. In celebration, he composed his aptly-titled new album Water along with its optimistic lead single “Seabright."
An instrumental acoustic guitar piece, “Seabright” wraps the listener in warm sunny tones along with finger-picking that evokes shimmering waters and the cascading of oars. You can almost feel the wind whipping your hair, too, with its joyous whimsy and playful rhythm.
The song’s name derives from the name of the small settlement where Ross and his wife lived for those three pandemic years. “The ironic sense of optimism that came out of the time of sanctuary is reflected in the tune,” Ross says. “The whole piece feels like a celebration – perhaps I was just feeling lucky/fortunate to be alive and healthy despite the surrounding chaos.”
In 2020, Covid forced Ross off the road, and he began studying for his Master’s degree in Orchestration online, with St. Margaret’s Bay shimmering right outside his window. At that point, with his last solo album having come out six years prior, he began to wonder how he was going to release another full-length album.
“I was wondering if the almost 35-year cycle of recording a new album and touring and playing live was more or less done for me,” he divulges. “But, I finally decided that I would do a new, sweeping-gesture of a record that would better reflect what I’ve been up to musically lately.” He decided he’d release it 100-percent independently, then embarked on a Kickstarter fundraising project and raised his goal within 28 hours.
“This afforded me the opportunity to be a bit more ambitious on this album, hiring an orchestra, and having wonderful guest musicians,” he says, naming Bruce Cockburn, Michael Manring, Brooke Miller and Sean Hall and The Atlantic String Machine. And hence, Water was born.
“I have lived surrounded by water for large chunks of my life,” Ross says. “Also, I spent countless hours during my Orchestration degree working in my studio that looked out onto the waters of St Margaret’s Bay, and the presence of this huge body of water literally metres from where I was working was imposing, but also a source of security during Covid. Meanwhile, it often felt like the whole world was figuratively living underwater during the pandemic. Now, it feels like I am able to resurface, along with the rest of the world.”
Don Ross was born and raised in Montreal and has lived in various parts of Canada over the course of his life. The son of a Mi’kmaw Indigenous mother and a Scottish immigrant father, he graduated with a BFA in music from York University and started working as a full-time musician in 1988. That year, he won the US National Fingerpick Guitar Championship for the first time (he’d win again in ’96), and also played with his quartet Eye Music at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland.
Signing a solo recording contract with Duke Street Records that same year, he went on to release two CDs of solo guitar music for the label in 1989 and 1990, as well as a third CD featuring vocal music, full band arrangements, and solo guitar tunes in 1993. Then came a deal with Sony Music/Columbia Records, and three more albums, as well as a licensing deal with US-based Narada Records. Signing directly with Narada in 1998, Don went on to release three CDs for the label. Passion Session, released in 1999, has gone on to be considered one of the high water marks in the world of modern solo guitar, with several of the tunes now considered more or less standard repertoire in the genre.
Don released Huron Street in 2001, an album of reinterpretations of earlier work never previously released internationally. It went on to spend two weeks in the Billboard Top Ten’s “New Age” chart. He then toured the world extensively, before signing to internet-based label startup CandyRat Records, and became the company’s first signed artist. Since then, Don has released multiple CDs for the label, as well as three other albums independently. In 2021, Don won the prestigious Walter Carsen Prize for Excellence in the Performing Arts, administered by the Canada Council for the Arts.
credits
released May 10, 2023
PRODUCED BY DON ROSS
Don Ross: guitar / piano / keyboards / dobro / bass / vocals / percussion / recording engineer / mix engineer / orchestrations
Bruce Cockburn: guitar & vocals on "Stained Glass"
Michael Manring: fretless bass on "Three Views of a Secret"
Brooke Miller: guitar on "Obrigado (Egberto)" and vocal on "Any Colour But Blue"
Sean Hall: guitar on "Mesmerized"
The Atlantic String Machine: strings on "Any Colour But Blue" and "Three Views of a Secret"
Shannon Quinn: guest violin on "Any Colour..."
The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra plays on
"The World Didn't Change (After All)"
The Atlantic String Machine is:
Sean Kemp: violin
Karen Graves: violin
Jeffrey Bazett-Jones: viola
Natalie Williams Calhoun: cello
Adam Hill: bass
Sean Hall's guitar was recorded by Antoine Dufour
Cover illustration by Alan Syliboy
Cover photograph by Rob Allen
Art direction: Ambrose Pottie
Mastering engineer: J. Lapointe at Archive Mastering
Thanks to all my Kickstarter supporters, especially my Executive Producers ANDY BROWN, DAN LIFSCHITZ, JAMES WRIGHT & WEIFENG LI and Project Enthusiast DOUG MCLEAN
Canadian guitarist and vocalist Don Ross has influenced a generation of new acoustic musicians over his 30-year+ career. In
addition to guitar, Don also plays piano, bass, drums, slide acoustic and end electric guitars, and a host of other instruments. He also scores films, video games and television programs. Born in Montreal, he currently lives in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada....more
I’m so grateful this crossed my path. This album is so beautiful. All the clear technique and mastery and vision are kinda secondary to the fact that this album brought me calm and joy during one of the most difficult times in my life. Yeah, grateful. David McCullough
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