Recorded in Lafayette, Louisiana in September 2020, listen to an outstanding new recording of Dirk Powell‘s classic ‘Waterbound‘ on which he is joined by Mike McGoldrick on flutes, Donald Shaw on accordion and Rainy Eyes on harmony vocals. While it’s been a song popular song with fans over the years, it is also very special to Dirk as it is tied to his fiddle playing grandfather James Clarence Hay who lived in Kentucky, Appalachia as he explains below. You can also enjoy the beautiful scenic lyric video they put together for the song.
As Johnny Whalley said in his recent review of Dirk’s new album When I Wait For You “it could only come from that rare combination of technical brilliance and joy of collaboration that Dirk Powell has in abundance.”
It’s been twenty years or more since I wrote Waterbound. More than any other I’ve written, it’s a song that seems to resonate across boundaries and means different things to different people. As an artist, it’s a very satisfying thing when a creation seems to take on a life of its own. I started working on this version as a powerful Louisiana thunderstorm rolled in, so I decided to record the rain and incorporate it into the track. At the beginning, you hear me open the first of the double doors to the studio and then the second, when the rain really gets loud. Mike McGoldrick and Donald Shaw went fully to the same place, from across the Atlantic. Mixing their tracks in was a beautiful experience, as was adding Rainy Eyes on harmony vocals, with her uncanny ability to match the timbre and feel of my voice while adding the soulfulness of her own. This song is also special to me because it ties to my grandfather, JC Hay. He was the one who carved his name on an old barn wall, where I saw it a good 70 years later. I’m grateful to have been asked to create this new version.
Dirk Powell
Last month saw the release of When I Wait For You, the new album from Dirk which featured a host of special guests including Mike McGoldrick, John McCusker, Sara Watkins, Rhiannon Giddens, Amelia and Sophie Powell, and many more. It was also one of our Featured Albums of the Month, you can read our album review here.
Dirk and Donald Shaw were special guests on this week’s BBC Radio 2 Folk Show which you can listen to again on BBC Sounds here.
Buy When I Wait For You via Vertical | Compass
