Grant Wallace Band & Ross Gallagher
The Battenkill

The tune is about rivers, the passing of time, and checking in with friends. Rivers give us a simultaneous sense of eternity and flux, of permanence and spontaneity. Siddhartha heard the “song of a thousand voices” in the river and had his revelation on the banks, when he saw that the river was always changing as it flowed past, yet also always the same. In the song they call him Old Man River, but geologically speaking, all the rivers on earth are actually quite youthful.

The band gathered by the river, Vermont’s Battenkill specifically, in August 2017. They weren’t old, but they weren’t exactly young anymore, either. They brought some songs with them, and made others together once they got there. From their place by the river these songs look around, take in their surroundings. After all, there are horizons behind us, too.

We go to the river to collect water, to wash our clothes, to meet friends for a dip. For this project GWB supplemented their tested trio format with the addition of Maine and New York-based composer/bassist Ross Gallagher, who contributed a fresh songwriting voice and an anchoring presence in the group’s in-studio improvisations.

Come on in; the water’s fine.

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Format

digital

Release Date

17 august 2018

Catalog #

2LR 012