12/01/2023
The new Gentle Hen album is out today! It's on Bandcamp and on all the places you listen to music! (CDs will follow soon). I hope you'll check it out. I'm quite fond of it and of my bandmates, Ken Maiuri, Max Germer, Brian T Marchese and our special guests: Lesa Bezo, Debbie Way, Leo Hwang, and Gordon E Clark. A thank you to Justin Pizzoferrato for help recording and Carl Saff for mastering. Also to WRSI - 93.9 The River for playing our lead off single the last couple of weeks!
It was a long time in the making. But we made it. It's not a concept album, but it is a sort of hazy storybook about traveling, time, motion, and life.
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Without planning it, my songs started to venture out into the world, seeking big skies and larger spaces and longer spans of time. I didn’t prod them; they prodded me. They put the keys in my hand, their hands on my back, and pushed me out the door. Who am I to argue with songs?
I just followed them as they careened down mountain highways, sprouted wings and flew south, shook off the sofa and headed to a friend’s house, sat back in a canoe beneath a winter sky, tore up lists and plans, broke promises, made apologies, and considered life after life, and then came back home.
I wrote all of these songs on my old red Guild acoustic while perched on the arm of a sofa in Northampton, Massachusetts. To my left was the kitchen and its windows watching the seasons pass in tree form: deep green, vibrant yellow, searing white, and muted brown. To my right was a view of the street, with cars, bicycles, families, dog walkers all going somewhere, or coming from somewhere (that’s the same thing).
When the songs were partially done, I finished up the lyrics while walking through my little town. I’d stroll down Main Street past cafes and benches, or sometimes on the bike path balanced above a bird swamp. Each song lived with me, in the back of my head, for weeks and weeks until suddenly they were all done.
Then, I introduced the songs to the band and breathed calmly and excitedly as Max, Brian, and Ken absorbed them, fed them, molded them, and lifted them up. We recorded openly, laughing often, making sure to capture anyone’s initial inspiration and immediate ideas, always asking what each song wanted.
And here we are now with a storybook of ten songs with knapsacks on their backs, waving see-you-later as they head off to wherever. I hope you consider going along for the ride.
I hope you find something here on this album that feels like home to you. That’s the full phrase you see. The Whole Point of the Trip is the title, but the sentence continues, of course, because really, the whole point of the Trip - is to get back home.
- Henning (December 1, 2023)
