This winter is reminding me of something: Forty-some-odd years ago, a young hippie was wintering in a tarpaper shack on the old family farm south of Muncie, Indiana. The cabin had no insulation, but it did have a freestanding wood stove my brothers welded together using a 55-gallon barrel and various & sundry stove parts we had lying about. Situated as it was in the middle of a 25 acre stand of woods, I was surrounded by free fuel, so what I lacked in heat retention I made up for by ramping up the stove and feeding its hungry maw day and night.
It was an experiment in simplification and solitude (Thoreau’s “Walden” being very much on my mind), a stripping away of creature comforts to look my life squarely in the face. I ported my water daily from the barn, and cooked my meals over an old kerosene stove I had found and refurbished for next to nothing (still have that old stove, BTW). I had no electricity, no plumbing, cut off from the world for days on end as the snow piled up around the cabin. What I *did* have was a snug bunk, an old couch, an easy chair, table, a few books, and of course my instruments… two guitars, a banjo, a mandola and a fiddle.
With time on my hands, I was doing a good deal of writing. One song that came from that old tarpaper shack was a tune written on the banjo, Chill Wind, a sort of existential rumination on where I was right then. I played the tune for years back in my early Bloomington days, then as I drifted off into a more instrumental direction, almost forgot about it.
That is, until I joined up with Stella Weakley and Bobbie Jane Lancaster in their band back in 2009. We recorded a CD, and the girls insisted that Chill Wind be included. Which was fine by me, I always liked the banjo riff, but with singers like that in the band, I felt the tune would sound better if I stuck to the ‘jo and have the ladies handle the vocals. So with Bobbie playing mandolin and singing the lead, and Stella on guitar and harmonies, with yours truly playing the original banjo riff and bass, the tune was the opening track on our CD, On With The Show!
Maybe it’s weird, but I’ve always liked winter. If you like winter too, maybe you’ll enjoy listening to Chill Wind. I’d like to think so.
http://www.stringdancer.com/media/stellaandjane/Chill Wind.mp3
