David Wilcox Feature Page

David Wilcox’s own musical story began in college, when he took up the guitar after hearing a fellow student playing "Buckets Of Rain" by Bob Dylan. It was love at first strum. Within a few months, he was writing his own songs. Drawing on influences from James Taylor to Motown to Joni Mitchell (she inspired him to explore alternate tunings), he created a sound that is both highly personal and emotionally forthright. "I’m drawn to artists who disclose something about themselves and let you in their world," Wilcox says. From his debut in 1987 with The Nightshift Watchman through standouts such as Home Again (1991), Turning Point (1997) and Live Songs And Stories (2001), he has consistently delivered music that The New York Daily News credits with giving "Sensitive singer/ songwriters back their good name."

Reflecting on fifteen years of record-making and touring, Wilcox says, "Music is still kind of like the headlights of the car into the night. It’s way beyond where I am. I used to think I would catch up, but now I hope I don’t. I hope the music stays my teacher. For me, I need to have stuff that is on the edge of what I’m learning - sort of my reasons to be, where I get my meaning. That’s hard to make musical. Nobody wants to sit for a philosophy lecture. So the discipline now is to have songs that have enough juice for me to sing them well, and yet to write them thoroughly enough that they become distilled and playful and simple, and not like I’m trying to be too heavy. I want the songs to have depth, but be strong enough on the surface that if you just want to skate across, it’ll hold you. That’s what I’m after."

Visit David Wilcox on the Web: www.davidwilcox.com