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Packwood

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PACKWOOD

Track List

      1. I Will Remember
      2. Willard & Beulah
      3. Irena Cross the Ocean
      4. Sleeping Dogs
      5. Freeman’s Song
      6. Sweet Louisa
      7. Auction Day
      8. Doing What We Can
      9. Saturday Night in Packwood
      10. Marie LaFleur
      11. Five Pines

I had returned to the Midwest for the funeral of my grandmother, to pay my respects. I was taken by a sense of homecoming in the town of Packwood, Iowa, home to four generations of my family.

I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, but felt there was no there there. In the summers, when I was on Willard’s farm in neighboring Richland, Iowa, I used to fantasize that I was from that place.

I was a Northerner in New Orleans, an American in Montreal, a Midwesterner in California and a non-Lutheran in Minnesota. But in Packwood I was just “Willie’s son.”

Back home in San Francisco, I wrote the first song, “Five Pines,” in about 20 minutes. I started working in the studio I built on Ellsworth Street, then in Minneapolis, and I finished recording the album in Montreal. There I worked with an old bandmate, violinist Joel Zifkin. He laid down his tracks at Silent Sound Studio, owned by another
old pal, Juno winner Morris Apelbaum. He was my first sound engineer twenty-five years ago in Montreal.

Most of the guitar tracks are played on the same Mossman acoustic guitar I played with Joel 25 years ago.

Some wonderful musicians joined me to make this happen. In addition to Joel, who was the violinist for The McGarrigle Sisters and tours with Richard Thompson; Linda Winston, a gospel signer from Minneapolis; Jarod Rush, keyboard player for the Minneapolis band Mango Jam; Michael Wilkes – drums; and my daughter Lenne, who makes her recording debut on this record.

The record was mixed by Tom Tucker, who mixed most of the records of the “poet laureate of Iowa”, Greg Brown, as well Lucinda Williams CD Essence and a number of records by Prince.

A project that takes this long tends to take you over. Now I know why they call it a release.

-Steve Klingaman

Guest Artists
Lenne Klingaman ~ vocals
Jarod Rush ~ keyboards
Michael Wilkes ~ drums
Linda Winston ~ vocals
Joel Zifkin ~ violin

All songs written by Steve Klingaman
Produced and engineered by Steve Klingaman
Recorded at NoName Studio. San Francisco/Minneapolis
Violin recorded and engineered by Morris Apelbaum at
Silent Sound Studio, Montreal
Mixed by Tom Tucker, Master Mix Studios, Minneapolis
Mastered by Tom Tucker, Jr., Master Mix Studios

Cover photograph “Near Ridgeway, Iowa”, rear cover “Near Hesper, Iowa” by Robert Campagna, Abbe Creek Gallery, Mount Vernon, IA

Humuncules SK102

Selected Airplay:
CKRL Quebec City
KUNI Cedar Rapids
KVSC Saint Cloud
KZSC Santa Cruz
UMFM Winnipeg
WKPN Hartford
WOJB Hayward
WPR Wisconsin Public Radio

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