Rayland Baxter - Wide Awake (CD)

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Rayland Baxter'€™s new album is a dream realized. Since he first started writing music, this roving rock '€˜n'€™ roll philosopher dreamed of a space where he could devote every waking hour to creating. The hard-touring musician finally found it in the form of an abandoned rubber band factory in Franklin, KY, where he covered the windows, threw a mattress on the floor and, with guitar and piano in tow, spent three straight months writing. At night he would sit and listen to the sounds around him: coyotes, the howling wind, the faint prattle of the nightly TV news. The result of this isolation quest is Wide Awake.

"This is an album about decision making," Baxter explains. "It'€™s about being a human at the crossroads. Do I do good or do I do evil? Do I lie or do I tell the truth? Am I going to be happy or am I going to be sad? All of these questions and emotions are things I see in myself, and they'€™re the same things I see in everyone else no matter where I go."

Wide Awake€™ was produced by Butch Walker and features Walker himself on bass, Cage The Elephant's Nick Bockrath on guitar, Dr. Dog'€™s Erick Slick on drums and piano wizard Aaron Embry (Elliott Smith, Brian Eno) on keys. Rayland'€™s father Bucky Baxter contributes pedal steel, as does original Nashville Cat Lloyd Green.

- CD