Magic Meadow Music

HERBS FOR ESSIAC

by Lanny Messinger

Magic Meadow Music is a one-of-a-kind concept album containing nine original songs that I wrote and produced. The theme of the album is "Living in harmony with Nature." Nature sounds such as birds, frogs, crickets, bubbling brooks, wind and even bugling elk are interwoven into, and are an integral part of, the music.

The title song of my album is--as you might guess--Magic Meadow Music. The song seems to have a universal appeal. When you listen to it, don't be surprised if your toes begin to tap and a smile spreads across your face; that's the purpose of the song.

I first "heard" Magic Meadow Music in a meadow filled with the joyful sounds of thousands of happy, fat, black crickets whose sole purpose--or so it seemed at the time--was to remind me to be happy, even though we live in an imperfect world.

ABOUT THE MAGIC MEADOW MUSIC ALBUM

Magic Meadow Music is the end product of a recording project that began in 1977 and was completed in 2002. However, it really began in 1974 when I moved out of the city and built a log cabin in the woods. I then began to commune with Nature. Being a musician and songwriter, I became increasingly aware of the music that is inherent in Nature. As I became more in tune with Nature, I began writing songs that were directly inspired by various aspects of Nature, such as wind, water and songbirds. With Nature as my muse, I became a conduit of an ever-expanding art form, intuitively translating subtle sounds and impressions from Nature into human terms. It was for me a spiritual experience more than anything.

It was at this time that I also began to study and use wild herbs for food, health and medicine.

The in-studio recording of Magic Meadow Music took four years to complete. There were a total of 28 musicians involved with the project, including a nine-piece string section (violins, violas, cellos, bass), four French horns, flutes, etc. from the Portland (Oregon) Symphony. There were 18 different types of instruments employed, running the gamut from violas, recorders and oboe to coconuts and a large "tom-tom" made from a hollowed out red fir log with rawhide stretched over it.

It took two years of traveling around the Pacific Northwest to record the specific nature sounds that I needed to blend with the music. I used a rather unique sound recording technology called binaural recording. "Binaural" literally means "two ears", and that is exactly how the sound was recorded--with a small microphone positioned in each ear. The stereophonic sound that is recorded in this manner is more true to life than standard recording methods because the sound is recorded just as we hear it--with our own ears. You will especially appreciate the binaurally recorded nature sounds when you listen to Magic Meadow Music with headphones.

Here are the songs in their order of appearance on the album:

1. Green Spring Melody -- Style: Easy listening; Featured instruments: flute, oboe, string section, piano, French horns; Nature sounds: a single marsh scene with many different kinds of birds, recorded on a beautiful morning at the Turnbull Game Refuge south of Cheney, Washington.

2. The Wind -- Style: Easy listening, lullaby; Featured instruments: string section blended with steel guitars, piano, 12-string guitar; Nature sounds: wind blowing through pine trees north of Spokane, Washington.

3. Water Song -- Style: Easy listening; Featured instruments: piano, 12-string and steel guitars, string section, recorders, French horns and chorus; Nature sounds: birds and thunder followed by light rain, recorded at Hughes Meadows north of Priest Lake, Idaho; second verse: mountain stream in Tillamook mountains (Oregon); third verse: ocean waves on beach with occasional seagull, recorded on Oregon coast.

4. Natural Man -- Style: Country/Western flavor; Featured instruments: steel guitar, fiddle, harmonica; Nature sounds: birds & chipmunks (Oregon & Washington), elk bugling at Jewell Elk Refuge south of Astoria, Oregon.

5. Take Me For A Ride -- Style: Country Rock, Featured instruments: electric guitars; Nature sounds: mountain birds recorded in north Idaho.

6. It's Not Too Late -- Style: Light Rock (Elvis Presley style); Featured instruments: piano & electric guitars; Sound effects: atom bomb (Yes, a real atom bomb; but I certainly did not record it!)

7. Free the People -- Style: Inspirational; Featured instruments: piano, 12-string guitar and chorus.

8. The Train -- Style: Old West "Cowboy-and-Indian"; Featured instruments: piano, banjo, cello, coconuts, log drum; Sound effects: old steam locomotive departing station followed by a second locomotive passing in the opposite direction, song ends with sounds of modern freight train followed by stereo frogs at the Turnbull Game Refuge.

9. Magic Meadow Music -- Style: Country-Jazz-Scat; Featured instruments: fiddle, banjo, piano, 12-string guitar; Nature sounds: crickets in western Oregon on the east side of the Tillamook Mountains.

FEATURED MUSICIANS

Lead vocals, 12-string guitar and 4-string banjo -- Lanny Messinger;
Drums, lead guitar, steel guitar, bass -- Brian Willis;
Piano -- Roger Wilhite
String section, French horns, flutes -- Portland Symphony

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