Burning

Willow’s debut album, released winter 2002/3, features achingly soulful vocals. Sophisticated, contemporary lyricism of a mystic heart. Transgenre compositions that invoke pop, folk-rock, acapella, jazzy blues, world music, and gospel influences. Informed by mantra, chant, and ballad. 12 original compositions weaving voice, saxophone, piano, guitar, bass, percussion, singingbowl, shruti box, shakuhachi, and cello.

Artistic collaboration with Linda Flinkman (piano), Hannah Alkire (cello), James Hoskins (cello), Todd Ayers (guitar/engineering/production), Steven McNamara (citar/engineering/production), Jeffrey Rodgers (tabla), Matthew Brandabur (guitar), Tony Edelblute (saxophone), Jia Gottlieb (shakuhachi), Nina Farana (poetry), Sam Fuqua (bass) and other guest musical artists.

"Willow's voice sounds like rain from heaven....[Burning is] a CD worthy of playing until it's all wore-out. And that's a lot."

- Waylon H. Lewis, Elephant Magazine, Summer, 2004


"Willow's...transmission-heavy song... will dissolve your ego faster than cotton candy in a bucket of lye. Whenever the driving rhythms of her show-stopper "Abandon" waft their way up here to the Pure Land, a little piece of [you] dies into the Void. This is a good thing."

-The Manifest E-zine

"I've been enjoying a new CD lately by, Willow Pearson, called "Burning." It is a unique blend of music, sounds, images, meditations, emotions and thoughts that harmonize beautifully...I found a great deal of solace and pain; love and clarity in "The Loss of You," especially in the aftermath of recent death and loss experiences. Other pieces are expressions of joy, stillness, even "Abandon," but all of it suffused with passion. Her music is also as delightfully difficult to categorize as it is filled with gifts.

- John Forman, Integral Development Associates


What are your musical roots? What influences come through your music, as reflected in your debut CD, Burning?

"My roots are in R&B and soul (as a singer with Everyday People) and I think that shows up in the music, along with many other influences. R& B honors the life that you live, the songs are about what's really going on. Gospel is about what you believe, about faithfulness, about spirituality. Soul is about what you feel in your body, your bones. Blues walks through suffering. Rock is about raw, visceral, gut level feeling. Ballads are about what you love, how the heart breaks, and how to repair it. Jazz is about motion and its counterpart, stillness. Chant is about the moment-to-moment rhythms of the body - the pulse of the heart, the rise and fall of the breath. And world music is about connecting with and accessing the multitude of musical forms and voices that differently and distinctly embody all of those feelings. I find that my music calls on all of those forms of expression to say what it has to say. At its best, in collaboration with the many talented musicians I record and perform with, my music is a tapestry and alchemy of those many influences." -Willow Pearson

Boulder Daily Camera interview excerpts
by columnist Matt Sebastian
copyright, February 2004, Lionessroars Productions