“Let me back up and get a running start this time”, Greg said as he put his van in reverse and drove back the mountain lane 50 yards in reverse, before putting the Volkswagen back in drive and confronting the snow drifts at a significantly higher speed. At the other end of the meadow, in the pine trees sat a cabin on the mountainside nearly covered up with snow. A cloud of snow exploded up into the windshield and white cascaded down around the windows. “Yeah…!” he said in his quiet way. A pretty dramatic declaration for Gregory, whose emotion is laid much barer when he is behind a guitar, rather than a EuroVan steering wheel bouncing down a rough country road in deep snow.
Over the holidays we drove up to Nederland, Colo. where Gregory and his producer, Jamie Mefford were holed up in a snowy cabin recording studio with some coffee, it’s requisite filters, piles of musical instruments, and a frosty window sill full of whisky. And there, under 100 mph Chinook winds blowing up on Eldorado (according to the grocery clerk in town) we sat in quiet observance behind the studio glass while the wind howled and watched Greg record tracks to a song that, if things go right, we’ll all be lucky enough to hear in his intended finality on a record someday soon.
Any art takes dedication, sometimes isolation, and more than one try with a running start to get down the rough roads that we seek the far ends of.
