“In a telephone interview during the South by Southwest music festival Mr. Ward described music as a puzzle he’d been working on since his youth in a Los Angeles suburb. He spoke about his desire to balance dark moods and joyous elements in his music, about his love for Dante and Marvin Gaye, and about how delving into pop music history has become vital to his songwriting.” [. . .] –James C. McKinley Jr., The New York Times (April 1, 2012)
Kevin Gordon
“There may be other singer-songwriters in Nashville who would start their day just so, but then, perhaps not. ‘This morning found me up at 6 to feed the dogs, then back in bed, where I read a little more of Dante’s Inferno,’ begins one blog post by Kevin Gordon, who has a master’s in poetry from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a musical sensibility that’s part Muddy Waters and part Carl Perkins. ‘It has a cooling effect. (The further in I get, the more it resembles life here on earth; Virgil leads Dante up Gallatin Road on a hot July evening).'” [. . .] –Peter Applebome, The New York Times, February 21, 2012
“(Ghost) Riders in the Sky” by Stan Jones, 1948
“In the song, a cowboy sees a bunch of dead cowboys chasing a herd of infernal cattle across the sky. One of them warns him that he must change his ways or he will join them in this endless chase. This is reminiscent of the opportunists at the vestibule of Hell, being forced to endlessly chase after a banner.” –John Ferriss
See lyrics at Ingeb
Contributed by John Ferriss (Bowdoin, ’08)
