This summer, Gabe Dixon was supposed to be on the road in support of his friends the Tedeschi Trucks Band with a new album’s worth of new songs ready to debut to the public.
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In addition to serving as an opening act, the Nashville-based keyboard player was also embarking on his first full fledged tour as a working member of TTB as well. Then the pandemic hit.
“Like a lot of people, my plans for the year got totally sidelined when the pandemic arrived,” Dixon explains to American Songwriter. “In February, I had a brand new album ready to release and was looking forward to a great summer tour opening for Tedeschi Trucks Band and St. Paul & The Broken Bones. Then COVID-19 hit. The tour got postponed until next year, and I’m still trying to figure out when and how to release my album. It’s not an easy call. Touring has always been the best way to promote my records, so I’m thinking about pushing the full album release to 2021, when, hopefully, I’ll be able to tour again.”
However, during this “period of suspended uncertainty” as Dixon calls it, he has utilized his downtime for creative purposes. And one of the first fruits of his woodshedding is “Smoke Clears,” a new collaborative single with fellow Triple A travelers Maia Sharp and Garrison Starr that the singer wanted to put out there as soon as possible.
“It was originally written about a romantic relationship—basically, a couple having a fight,” Dixon tells American Songwriter. “We really liked it and even recorded two versions of it—one with me singing and one with Garrison singing—but it sort of sat on the shelf for a year or so. Then, when the pandemic hit, along with the subsequent protests sparked by the tragic and racially motivated murders of George Floyd and other innocent black people, Maia had the inspiration that we could rewrite the lyrics to capture the feelings of uncertainty, upheaval, loss, and hope many of us have been feeling at this time. The three of us got on Zoom and changed a bunch of the lyrics. Suddenly, we had a song that was even broader and more powerful and relevant than we imagined it could be. I couldn’t wait to record it.”
For fans of Sharp, Starr and Dixon, their union is a power trio of Money Jungle proportions, and “Smoke Clears” is a song that foreshadows the promise of what’s to come while also providing some encouraging words in these most fretful times.
“This song captures how I feel about all this mess and about this moment of reckoning that we are in,” Dixon tells American Songwriter. “It’s hard to predict the future, but, just like smoke always clears eventually, we know there will be an end to this chapter of chaos and upheaval. When that happens, I hope we will have grown and evolved into more loving and compassionate human beings. I hope we will have found a more sane way of life and that we’ll have taken giant leaps toward solving the problems of racial and economic inequity. I believe that’s where we are headed. I hope this song gives people some hope for the future.”
Take a listen on your favorite digital steaming service via this smartlink.
