The writing of the songs that became Heart Like a Levee started in a hotel room in Washington DC in January of 2015 during a powerful storm that darkened the East Coast.

At that time I was feeling-more acutely than I had ever felt before-wrenched apart by my responsibilities to my family and to my music.

Forgetting, momentarily, that for me, each exists only with the other. How could I forget? Though maybe my lapse was reasonable: I had just quit my job, the most recent and last, in a series of dead-end gigs stretching back 20 years, with the vow that my children would understand their father as a man in love with his world and the inventor of his own days.

They would be rare in that regard. And then-driven by monthly bills and pure fear- I left for another tour, carrying a load of guilt that I could just barely lift.

But in that snowy hotel room I found the refrain that became my compass: I was a dreamer, babe, when I set out on the road; but did I say I could find my way home? M.C.

Taylor Durham, NC