The Story Behind "Dogwood Tree"

After months of writing in my grandmother‘s farmhouse during the pandemic, there was a day when I realized these songs were a cohesive project begging to be released. On that day I also realized that they were calling for a shift in genre. All of my previous solo releases that I shared about in last week's blog fell under the umbrella of Contemporary Christian. This new batch of songs were undoubtedly Americana to me. The Americana music genre is simply a conglomeration of all kinds of American music styles with an emphasis on genres from the South. It's a musical melting pot and I resonate with that, but most importantly I appreciate the way Americana music celebrates the stories told within the melodies.  

Making music takes money and every project I've released has its own story of provision. Dogwood Tree's story starts near my hometown in Virginia. I called an old friend who has been faithfully encouraging me to believe in myself as a musician for nearly 20 years now. Robby Meadows was happy to help me get the ball rolling once again as I recorded a little here, and a little there when I had the money. One day a friend who knew about my piecemeal way of working on this dream sent me several hundred dollars on Venmo. She said "I was praying and God told me to give you this for recording." In my pride, I tried to argue, but she wouldn't hear it. I had no choice but to gratefully accept and keep working on the music my heart just had to make.

I love making music but releasing it is another story. The planning and administration and strategy and self-promotion all make me wanna gag. That's just not my jam and I think most singer/songwriters would agree. We just want to enjoy being creative and hope our songs magically find their way to the listening ears who need them. After years of releasing music, I knew the industry didn't work like that. I decided it was best to wait for the right timing and have the right plan in place.

For years I tried to figure that out on my own but nothing ever felt right. In the middle of the waiting a wonderful, beautiful long-awaited answer to prayer happened. Charles James DiPuma, Jr walked back into my life one Sunday morning as I led worship in Harrisonburg, VA. After a whirlwind romance, we got married on the most perfect September evening with the most beautiful Shenandoah Valley sunset I had ever seen painting the sky. Less than two years later we felt a call to Nashville for music and moved on faith not knowing what was ahead.

After a very fruitless and frustrating month of a job search in Music City, I reached out to an old friend and industry mentor who was launching a new company. Amazingly, she had been praying for a new team member as I had been praying for the right job and it all came together! What I didn't know is that our re-connection would lead to an opportunity to be a part of her launch of CGS Records - an Americana label located in the historic RCA Victor building on Nashville's Music Row. She had heard the "farmhouse songs" years ago when I first wrote them and believed deeply in the message they carry, A few weeks after I started my new job, she surprised me with an offer to join the label! In the past few months, she generously made a way for me to finish recording the songs I had started in Virginia, and then had the finished songs mixed and mastered in the RCA building, It was all a dream come true and I'm honestly, still in awe of the way it happened!

Just this week one of my work tasks was to pick up a 2‘ x 2‘ printed poster of my EP cover and hang it on the gallery wall of the CGS Records office with the label's other releases. As I did, I smiled thinking about the four year journey it has been to write, record, and release these song stories. Many times I wondered if it would ever happen. Never did I imagine it would happen through a label in Nashville!

If you know me, you know that I am a person of faith. I don’t hide it, and I don’t shy away from it because quite simply, God has been too good to me to not acknowledge his work in my life. This project is just another example of his faithfulness and his ability to write my story more beautifully than I could’ve dreamed. So here I am in Music City, releasing my Sentimental Americana songs believing that the stories they carry will be meaningful to you too.