In early 2001, Willard Grant Conspiracy released their fourth full-length album on Rykodisc/Slow River. Everything's Fine is the follow-up to last year's majestic Mojave which won the group legions of new fans and which CMJ described as "...one of the warmest declarations of loneliness you're likely to hear, rendered with all the fine acoustic/electric interplay and graceful swaying melodies of an Appalachian waltz. Darkly alluring stuff."
WGC's enigmatic frontman Robert Fisher and his longstanding songwriting partner Paul Austin remain the core of this collective, which was formed in 1995. Like its predecessor, Everything's Fine is a collaborative effort, recorded by a group of loosely collected musicians who joined Fisher on vocals and Austin on acoustic guitar and recorded the album in Boston. Fisher says "We were able to record the basic tracks with Peter Linnane playing grand piano, Terri Moeller on drums and Pete Sutton on bass guitar. Later, George Howard, Vic Rawlings, Chris Brokaw, David Michael Curry, Edith Frost, Carla Torgerson, Pete Weiss, and James Apt joined us to lend their considerable talents to the music. We are fortunate to work with so many people who share their time and invest their talents in service of the songs."
The music of Willard Grant Conspiracy, like the most heart-wrenching blues, can be at times so sad that it makes you happy. Or, as Amazon.com described, "Like a harsh winter storm that wreaks both havoc and beauty in its unequivocal path...the near hymn-like solemnity of the song cycle creates a healing calm." Their melancholy observations of small-town suffocation and human frailty, the mini-tragedies wrapped in beautiful melodies and sung by Fisher in his powerful, haunting baritone, grip you from the first listen.
Robert Fisher has seen the world from many different sides: singer, writer, poet, etc. Let him tell you about the songs...
"So where did these songs come from? Some arrived at Christmas time in Carson City where it's dusk and the lights from the casinos overwhelm the city's display. Certain seeds of these songs were sown in the warm rain of Georgia and in stories swapped around a diner counter over some of the worst diner coffee ever served. Some were born in the sweet night air of Memphis; Christmas lights on buildings with their reflections swallowed up in the dark flow of the Mississippi. Lonely fragments of recollection infused with the hope that someday, somewhere things can change. In Las Cruces the perfume of roasting pecans and peppers circles the paper lanterns lighting the adobe roofs of old Mesilla. Lovers walk the raised wood sidewalks around the mostly deserted square listening to mariachi players. Los Angeles is a walk down dark streets where the 50s suburban dream has become an urban nightmare." "All these places, these varied geographies, inform the songs. Lives lived in private and public. Personal observations combined with fiction. The high desert myths of the West, the hard won decay of the South and the stoic challenge of New England collected in small town and city stories. We found these songs or they found us. We hope these songs find you like they found us."
