The songs of Walkin9 This Way were inspired during last, last summer and fall of 2019. The album is dedicated to my dear friend of over a decade (9 years at the time), Rosalie Valgreen who, just over 2 years ago now survived not only a serious car accident but also being hit by a car afterwards at the scene of the original accident. For months she was paralyzed and told she would never walk again, but through the encouragement of those around her and through the power of her will, she has been walking strong again since early last, last summer (2019).

When I first found out about this I was devastated. I cried like I hadn't cried in years just thinking of the suffering she had gone through and having been unable to walk...I shut my eyes and I would see her like yesterday...the girl I had known since 2010 that would fly past me on her skateboard so many afternoons in Old Town Orange while I'd be out busking on or next to the bench featured in the cover photo taken around that time by Reuben Vollmer. So many afternoons primarily from 2010-2013 I'd be out there playing from 4-9 p.m. and on her way back through town she would often then stop, and listen and appreciate the music, and share some words and a smile and throw a candy bar or a dollar bill into my guitar case.

The album opens with "Never Lost", a song I wrote as a response to a picture and quote I'd happened to see on Rosalie's wall last, last summer. It was a picture of her and me in better days in December in 2015, shortly after she'd helped me get my life back together and it read: "I only have memories of the old souls my soul used to know." "Never Lost" started coming through in that instant word for word, melody and all, just like that and it was like I could hear the whole thing inside already.

Earlier that same year, I had gone through what I consider to be the hardest time of my life, living out of my car in three different states for about five months and experiencing total writers block and feeling as if I had lost my voice. I had just moved back to Orange, what felt like home, and it felt strange not running into anyone around there anymore. By synchronicity, she was the first soul I crossed paths with in town that I knew from back in my day that made me have a soul remembrance for the first time in a years because she was literally the only one around who remembered me as my soul. I'd nearly forgotten myself to be a songwriter and busker without that sacred remembrance, I truly believe I could have lost that part of myself.

Rosalie has since encouraged me through the years and been there for me on some of my hardest days and nights in a way that no other friend ever has in my life, and always inspires me to keep creating. I am grateful when I see my soul all lit up in my eyes in one of her many photographs through the years and then feel my soul jump back inside me now in a moment of crystal clearness once again when I do.

Walkin9 This Way is a celebration of nostalgia to honor the strongest woman I know, who in both her friendship to me over the years and through her craft of photography has always led me back to my soul. It is spelled with the 9 for two reasons: 1) To signify having walked on a path that is close to death, as I too have had more than a few close calls. & 2) because last, last summer when these songs were first composed marked the 9th anniversary of us first meeting at the Orange Circle.

With a closeness to death comes a newfound closeness and love for life and though we had both begun to discover this already on our journeys, this marked a new season. Rosalie, never said one vengeful or even resentful word to me about either of the young men at fault in the accident even though she knew both of them had been under the influence of alcohol and prescription drugs at the time of the accident and at the trial, they had been shady and rude and she hardly got any compensation for the damages to her car or herself. Seeing her soul through this journey has opened my heart further to life and to my very own soul than ever before.

May the whole world continue to learn from you, Rosalie.

9 November 2020