David Wilcox (American musician)
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David Patrick Wilcox (born 1958) is an American folk musician and singer-songwriter.
Wilcox was born in Mentor, Ohio; he moved to North Carolina to attend Warren Wilson College in 1981. He learned to play the guitar there and graduated in 1985.
Within two years he had released his first album, and by 1989 he had signed with a major label. Three albums later, the major label released him, but he continued to tour and release albums.
In reviews his voice is perhaps most often compared with James Taylor, though a 1994 Acoustic Guitar cover story characterized it as Taylor combined with a "husky breathiness more reminiscent of the late Nick Drake." That article also called him the "best known of the brilliant crop of singer-songwriters to emerge in the late '80s."
Wilcox plays primarily acoustic guitar, and he was one of several prominent guitarists who popularized the Olson Guitar brand in the 1990s. His fingerstyle playing, influenced by Nick Drake and Joni Mitchell, utilizes open tuning extensively, often in combination with customized capos with notches cut out to allow lower strings to ring open.
Discography
- Vista (What Are Records? - 2006)
- Out Beyond Ideas (What Are Records? - 2005, with his wife Nance Pettit)
- Into The Mystery (What Are Records? - 2003)
- Live Songs and Stories (What Are Records? - 2002)
- The Very Best of David Wilcox (A&M Records - 2001)
- What You Whispered (Vanguard Records - 2000)
- Underneath (Vanguard Records - 1999)
- Turning Point (Koch International - 1997)
- East Asheville Hardware (Fresh Baked Records/Koch Records - 1996)
- Big Horizon (A&M Records - 1994)
- Home Again (A&M Records - 1991)
- How Did You Find Me Here (A&M Records - 1989)
- Nightshift Watchman (Song of the Wood - 1987, re-released Fresh Baked Records/Koch Records - 1996)
Most recent albums
His album Out Beyond Ideas is a joint project with his wife (Nance Pettit), and a significant diversion from his prior work. It features sacred poetry set to music. The poems are from people of various religious traditions:- Saint Francis of Assisi
- Sufi mystic Jalaludin Rumi
- Persian mystic Shams-ud-din Muhammad Hafiz (خواجه شمسالدین محمد حافظ شیرازی)
- Rabia al Basri from Basra
- Jewish mystical poets Judiah Halevi and Solomon Ben Judah,
- Uvavnuk, an Netsilik Inuit shaman, and
- Kabir (कबीर) from India.
- Ben Wisch did such an awesome job taking the tracks that I did at home and turning them into my best CD ever. As usual, it has more tracks than most CDs because with all the time it took for me to get this CD out, it's really more like a "best of" CD than just this year's harvest....
- [For] one song on the VISTA CD I recorded my part outside and the subtle sound of the birds was just what it needed.
External links
- [Official website]
- [1994 interview with Wilcox], focused on technical aspects of his guitar playing; also available [from his website]
- [David Wilcox] at the What Are Records website
- [David Wilcox Lyrics]
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