AMERICANA TRILOGY

When I sat down in the Winter of 2013 with co-producer Lora-Faye to play her the songs that I had written up to that point, she said “I think you have two albums here – the rootsy stuff and the rock stuff.”

I immediately agreed with her viewpoint but then it gradually became clear as we got through all the rehearsals, tracking, editing and overdubbing that we were really looking at 3 albums.  This is because my “rootsy stuff” was/is clearly divided between blues-based and country-based material.

Certainly it can be done to perform and arrange those two genres into a cohesive artistic experience but we realized that we didn’t want to.  So the idea of Whelan’s “Americana Trilogy” was born.  In my view, Americana music is a table that stands on four legs, which are Folk, Country, Blues and Rock ‘n’ Roll. I have no ability add anything meaningful to the Folk canon, but the other three legs – well those are the genres that have inspired my songwriting.

The first disc in the trilogy is out now – “Flood Waters Rising.”  That’s the blues-based disc.  God willing and the creek don’t rise, the second disc will be entitled “Grandpa’s Rye.”  That’s the country-inspired disc and we’re lucky that we actually have three of the songs in the can from the “Flood Waters Sessions” already.  The third disc will be entitled “NY Taxi” and will be the rock & soul inspired disc.

In future posts we’ll have a chance to talk about specific inspirations & influences for each project.