Over the course of 13 months, folk singer-songwriter Abigail Dowd’s home flooded 6 times. Exhausted by the relatively Sisyphean restorations and repair that resulted, not to discuss health concerns, Dowd decided to hit the roadway. She invested 5 months living nomadically, writing tunes on good friends’ patios, in her cars and truck, and as evidenced in this video, even in the middle of rivers.
In this Acoustic Guitar Session in Place Dowd performs “St. Vrain,” a captivating and melodically-rich fingerstyle arrangement that was written atop a boulder in the St. Vrain River in Colorado. “It almost felt as if the river was writing the piece for me,” Dowd says of the songwriting procedure. “It all just sort of flowed together and my hands understood where to go.”
With her Taylor DN3 capoed at the 6th fret Dowd delivers brilliant, chiming tunes and a rich, grooving rhythm that channels the ever-changing flow of the river. “St. Vrain” appears on Dowd’s newest record, “Gorgeous Day,” a collection of 12 tunes written during her nomadic era.
