The new CD and music book, Passages, is now shipping. You can preview tracks and place your order by clicking on the album cover. And a blog to boot! Leave a word via the “comment” button at the end.

Hello! Thank you for finding your way here. I am so glad to have some new music and the chance to connect with you again, or maybe for the first time.This project was recorded in the cavernous underground spaces of the old Sears, Roebuck and Co. (built in 1910) in Dallas. Now a haven for art and artists, this building called to the music and seemed a perfect match. With beautiful timing, Charlie Steele, Director of Arts, invited me to participate in a residency there. Amid this inspiration, Passages was developed, rehearsed and recorded. To raise the stakes a bit more, my friend John Wynn brought several beautiful hand-made Rozas Spanish guitars for me to play and we were granted the use of Gordon Garrison’s vintage Neumann microphones.

Writing Passages was far more personal. Several years ago during a period of extended silence, music began to change for me. My words (and song forms) became less resonant and the sound of a timeless Spanish guitar much more so. I found myself in communion with this instrument and somehow understood by it. New melodies have now emerged between the two of us (the guitar and me) and by this I am being delivered through a period of deep and quiet change - a passage. “The water is wide,” says the old folk song. I am sailing a wooden ship with a mast of ebony and six long ropes that ring in the wind. I expect I am crossing over to a new place.

Writing and playing this music has been a daily meditative practice for me in the last several years. It is a kind of whistling in the dark, I think. After a lengthy creative engagement with institutional religious faith, I am listening more and endorsing less. The quietness has been life-giving. My hope is that you will, in the hearing of this album, be reminded of the wordless ways of the heart, of midnight voyages on the water, and of the simple gifts of old architecture and strings on wood.

The new album contains a group of pieces called “Mission Suite,” for the five 18th Century Spanish Missions in San Antonio. These first churches and outposts of western culture still speak of the high hopes inspired by the New World and the scars and sadnesses brought in the attempt to tame it. When I walk the Mission Trail, I find myself thinking about who I am and what it means to live in the shadow of these stone walls. Somehow, we who tread upon history must listen to the story within the story to find our own hearts and voices. I’m grateful for your resonance.

I wish you well,

Billy