ednes by leon todd johnson

This album is the culmination of about four years of writing. The heart of this project began as a set of compositions for the book The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame.

The Wind in the Willows (a book introduced to me by my mother) promised a world where everything was simple, where all things in nature had their place, and where everyone (no matter their differences, quirks, or their troubles) was part of a close family of friends.

I decided about 4 or 5 years ago to write a tribute to this story, but as my writing evolved, and I started to find my voice, I realized that if I freed myself of the stringent requirements I set for myself for this project, I could be more effective at writing music that truly communicated the message I wanted to.

This album is about home and belongingness. Some of us find it in our family, some in our friends, and some of us find it in our passions. In any case, we all yearn that familiar feeling, and this album is about that strange but wonderful part of the human experience. Maybe now is a fitting time to reflect on these feelings.

(The vocal recordings are of my step-father, and the radio-recordings are public domain samples from the NASA Apollo 10, Apollo 11, and Apollo 13 mission recordings. I believe the latter capture an interesting interpretation of the word "home".)

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