Click here to see Dana on SpotlightOn!
The Greeks believed Prometheus molded humankind out of mud. In the Bible's creation story, God formed Adam from the dust of the earth. Jewish legends tell of the Golem, an avenger and protector created from mud.
All these stories echo through the themes of Dana Cooper's new album, Made of Mud. In an age of division, Cooper's songs focus on what humans all have in common as symbolized by the earth beneath our feet, from whence we came and to which we shall return. Whether you're Howard Hughes or the guy in the gutter, says Cooper, we're all pretty much the same person.
Cooper has been honing his songcraft since his teenage years playing in the clubs and coffeehouses of Kansas City, Mo. Bypassing a college art scholarship to tour the country, he landed in Los Angeles and released his debut album in 1973. By 1978, he had relocated again to Texas, where he formed a duo with friend Shake Russell (the pair would release five albums together). Cooper moved to Nashville in 1988 and returned to his solo career, releasing critically acclaimed albums like the Nashville Music Award-nominated Miracle Mile and 2002's Harry Truman Built a Road, named one of the years best records by the Nashville Tennessean.
Cooper's new album crowns those accomplishments with a suite of songs that span the entirety of his career. The most recent, "Sit This One Out," was finished during recording sessions last year; the earliest, "Step Into the Light," was written with Russell in San Francisco three decades ago. "I wanted purposely to include some of these older songs," says Cooper. "I thought they fit what I'm doing now. It's funny how a song that old will still be so timely."
There is one unexpectedly timely tune on Made of Mud that Cooper didn't write: Woody Guthrie's "Pretty Boy Floyd." It's the first cover version Cooper has ever included on an album, although he's been performing it since his coffeehouse years in Missouri. "I thought some of the things that are going on now hearken back to the Depression, when there were outlaws in the country fighting against the banks and the big-money guys," he explains. "I see the time were in now as similar to that time in a lot of ways."
Despite such disparate origins, the 11 tracks on Made of Mud bring a broad range of human experience into focus with clarity, coherence and concision. "There are songs on there about mortality and immortality, politics and religion and love, the struggle of living, and the possibilities of how much we can accomplish," says Cooper. It's a journey through life, from song to song.
To bring that journey to life, Cooper has once again enlisted producer Richard McLaurin. The songs were recorded over several weeks in Nashville with a basic lineup of Cooper on guitar, bass player Dave Jacques, drummer Paul Griffith and McLaurin playing guitar, keyboards and mandolin, among other instruments. "Recording hinges so much on who you're working with, and I'm really comfortable with Richard McLaurin," says Cooper. "As a producer, an arranger and a musician, he creates such a great environment. It's all about the feeling of the song with him, and I like that."
That feeling comes through loud and clear on Made of Mud. "I just want to make great records that appeal to people's emotions, and speak to their life experience," Cooper concludes. "There's nothing better than when someone says, 'Man, when you write your songs, you say the things that I want to say.' That's what Im trying to do."
