This song is unique in that it is the only track on which I play the mountain dulcimer. The instrument belonged to a friend who lent it to me for the sessions. (Soon afterward, he sold the dulcimer in order to buy a deer rifle.) I had owned a dulcimer many years before and had a basic knowledge of how to play. The flute on this track is one that I purchased from a Choctaw maker from Oklahoma. It has a beautiful, clean tone which, in this song, brought to mind the lovely cascading notes of the call of the canyon wren, which Nikki and I always delighted in during our canyon adventures. The title is a play on "Renaissance."

"Escalante"

This is probably my favorite song from "Ruin Sky." At the time I was recording this album, I had become enchanted with the canyons of the Escalante River in Utah, and this song was my musical homage to that place. I recorded the rhythm guitar track first and then added a second guitar line as a bass substitute. Next came the flute part which consisted of both backing and lead sections. I found a keyboard sound I liked to add texture and depth, and then decided to try a solo on acoustic guitar. Engineer, Blair Ashby, did an great job of recording my old Yamaha steel-string and we were really pleased with the result. My producer, Doug Goodwin, said it reminded him of the acoustic solos played by Peter White on Al Stewart songs. The water sound was carefully chosen from a public-domain sound effects library. The song brings back strong memories of many glorious canyon days.

Fado
(a found poem)
 
 A cry for hope.
 
Tenderness?
Sure, but so little.
 
Just because a swallow dies, spring does not end.
 
The soul gets tired.
 
The fingers take orders from the heart.
 
We leave our bodies when we sing.
 
The alchemy of sound and poem,
it’s inside us from birth.
 
**

Memory?
 
I cannot remember if
there was a candle
on the clothed table
set for one.
 
I do recall the vinho verde
chilling in a teakwood bucket,
poured quietly between 
sets of fado, smoldering,
mournful--
 
tearful singer, wet cheeks lit
by dying candlelight.
 
I remember.

 
**
 
Into the Vapor and Din
 
Listening to Amalia with windows
wide open,
saudade in winter
evening gloom.
 
My new guitarra portuguesa
yearns for me to learn, to teach
old fingers new licks, and I dream
 
I am wandering calcadas in Lisboa
inventing my own heteronyms, concocting
poems with vastly different pens.
 
I greet Fernando Pessoa,
“Bom dia, Senhor. I saw you sitting
outside A Brasileira today but
you were not actually there
nor anywhere else.”
 
“That is how I prefer it,”
he replied without inflection
then vanished precisely
into the vapor and din.
 
I awaken to Amalia singing
life’s last song,
to gray-soaked murk and
swirling fog.
 
The music pours through
my confused heart.
 
My weeping eyes listen
to the distant wild
ocean wind.


(c) Eric Walter 2022

This song is played on a double flute (drone flute) made by Odell Borg.
The waterfalls seen in the video are located in Skamania County, Washington, USA.
Dedicated to my beautiful Nikki.

So named by painter Georgia O'Keeffe, the "white place" (La Plaza Blanca) is a geologically unique and stunningly picturesque area near the Rio Chama in northern New Mexico (USA). It was a favored painting location for O'Keeffe and is visible from her house in Abiquiu Pueblo. Nikki and I spent a beautiful morning there during our visit to New Mexico in November of 2019. Nikki had a vigor that had been absent since her diagnosis, and it seemed as if the chemotherapy through which she had been suffering was perhaps working. Little did either of us imagine that she had only ten weeks to live. This was the last hike we took together.

This song was the first track recorded during the "She Who Watches" sessions in December of 2020. It features guitar, Native American flute, mandolin, and accordion.

La Plaza Blanca
 
 
You could see it from
her house in Abiquiú
across the Rio Chama
Georgia’s skull-white
landscape muse
owned now by a mosque
that grants us heathens
and pilgrims of Other
respectful access
to this pallid sanctum
of tuneful wind
raven song ringing beyond
chalky hoodoos and
along milky ledges
pastel creek beds
that seem to run
more ways than
one.
 
Then silence
then song again
then wind
then none.
 
With Georgia’s ghost and
the hosts of Muhammed
we track a shadowy past
slipping through fences
of barbwire and bone
pondering strange exhibits
of black stones on this ashen canvas
stretching beyond time.
 
This sun-bleached forever
is quite hard to find
there are no signs
and the address in the local guide
is 1234 Fictitious Lane.

I learned this ancient Sanskrit chant from my friend, master sitarist and singer, Pandit Deobrat Mishra of Varanasi, India. Not long after Nikki was diagnosed with cancer, I took a workshop on naad yoga with Debu and learned several beautiful chants. Chanting has since been an important facet of my grief-work and my attempt to heal. I am grateful to Debu and to my yoga teacher, Maddie Adams, for instilling in me a love for this practice.

The Indalo Wind interpretation of this sacred mantra features Native American flute, and shruti, a traditional Indian instrument that produces a drone using a system of bellows (similar to a harmonium, but without the keyboard). It was recorded in December 2020.

"Zuñi Sunrise" is a traditional Native American melody which was first transcribed into western notation and published as sheet music in 1913 by Carlos Troyer.  (Charles Troyer, born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1837, was a pianist/composer/teacher who immigrated to America and settled in San Francisco sometime before 1871. He began using the name Carlos in 1885 and became known for his arrangements of Native American melodies. His transcription of "Zuñi Sunrise" was widely reprinted in books for schoolchildren and the scouting movement.) I first heard it as sung by the legendary Navajo singer, Ed Lee Natay, on a recording made by Canyon Records in 1951. This version was playing in the reconstructed great kiva at Aztec National Monument in Aztec, New Mexico, during my first visit there in 1990. I was entranced by the haunting simplicity and beauty of the melody. Soon afterward, I learned it on the Native American flute (by ear from the Natay recording) so I could perform it as part of my theater piece, Desert Time. The song has been part of my repertoire ever since. I have played it at weddings and funerals. I have played it in depths of the Grand Canyon, in the Maze, and on the banks of the San Juan River as a wake-up tune for rafters. I have played it for audiences in Greece, Cambodia, and Laos. I performed it for a class at the Naropa Institute taught by Native flute master, R. Carlos Nakai, who had recorded the melody for his 1983 debut album, Changes. In 2013, I was pleased to finally record my own version for Indalo Wind's debut album. On this recording, I play a six-hole red cedar flute made by legendary Cherokee flute-maker, Hawk Littlejohn, which I purchased from his daughter at a powwow in Durham, North Carolina in 1992. It is my favorite flute and one which has traveled far and wide.

Steve, a gifted songwriter, wrote most of the songs although Chris contributed tracks as well. We played extended jams that were free and energetic, funky and psychedelic. We weren't always brilliant but we were pretty fearless. Steve and I both played acoustic-electric guitars but I used a few effects on my leads. Chris played fretless bass. Rich, a muscular, former-Marine, played with great skill and boundless energy on a kit that seemed as big as Carl Palmer's. (Our load-ins and breakdowns were famously arduous.) Our music was once described as "energetic acoustic groove". The band did not remain together long, perhaps six months, but it was a pretty fun ride while it lasted. During our time together, we played several times at Quixote's in Aurora, which was then the foremost Dead-centered bar on the Front Range. Lots of tie-dye and long hair. Our gigs lasted over four hours and people danced to the end.  We also played once at The Buffalo Rose, a legendary biker-friendly venue in Golden. A few days after us, the headliner was Blue Oyster Cult.

The track featured here, "Neighbors", was recorded at The Bluebird, a well-known venue in Denver. We were performing as part of a four band showcase. The song is a funky instrumental composed by Chris Wangelin, whose dynamic bass playing is the centerpiece. I loved playing this one am happy to have this recording.