By Jared F. Cranke

Publisher

One of Stillwater’s favorite singer/songwriters, Dominick McClenny, is ready to release a CD of new songs and fan favorites Saturday, February 6, 2010, at Ell’s, 7600 South Perkins.

McClenny has been a long-standing original live music act in the Stillwater area for the last decade or more with bands like Dirty Pholk and his own Dominck McClenny Band. Several nights, you can also catch him doing live acoustic shows anywhere in the state thrilling audiences with his original tunes and the occasional cover song. His former jam band, Dirty Pholk, released Memory Lane in 2004 and in 2008 McClenny released two CDs, 80th Street Sessions and Live with Dom McClenny and Ryan Stallings.

The latest CD is called Redemption and marks a distinct change from some of McClenny’s previous releases. Redemption, with a very strong emphasis on songwriting, has been ten years in the making and it is well worth the wait. Redemption includes new, more marketable versions of some of McClenny’s greatest compositions as well as a few great, fresh tracks that will quickly become familiar to your ears after just a few listens.

McClenny isn’t looking for any kind of musical redemption with the album but is giving his fans yet another look inside the mind and world of an artist with the new CD. The title, he says, is more of a metaphor that has some personal and not-so-personal meanings.

The opening track on the CD, “When You Get There,” immediately jumps out and catches you offguard if you are expecting the traditional acoustic guitar sounds that normally accompany McClenny. An intriguing and infectious tune, “When You Get There” is a song recently penned about friendship and changes to relationships.

“‘When You Get There’ was written about a good friend of mine leaving town for south Texas,” says McClenny. “I was having mixed feelings about the situation, sat down with a guitar and that’s what came out.”

Another memorable track, “The Floor,” recounts the story of another relationship and the strange results from its end.

“I have to thank a couple of friends for that one,” McClenny adds with a wry laugh. “An ex [girlfriend] of mine got together with one of my best friends. Enough said.”

Two songs that fans of McClenny will immediately recognize on the album are “South Wind” and “Arizona Way,” both of which are regular staples in his setlist and have been covered by other local artists as well. These new versions finally get the full-band touch that they needed to be more acceptable by the music business and refining them also ramped up their captivating qualities.

“When we started the process of recording this album, we had to take into account the length of most of the songs,” McClenny says. “It turned out that the original length of ‘Arizona Way’ was somewhere around eight minutes. We had to think about radio play, etc. so in preproduction we took another look at the tunes and shortened them a bit. ‘South Wind’ was pretty much the same thing. I had a lot of help in preproduction from my producer Greg Pearce. He helped out a lot with the reconfiguration of some of the tunes.”

Greg Pearce is the owner of Flatland Recording Studio, 523 East 44th Avenue, where McClenny recorded Redemption. Other artists that have recorded at Flatland include No Justice, Chad Sullins & the Last Call Coalition, Ordinary Outlaws, Nick Gibson and several others. Greg and his son Tony Pearce are credited with producing the album and Tony even played guitar on several tracks while also serving as recording engineer.

“It was a great experience,” McClenny says of recording at Flatland. “Greg and Tony helped out more than words can say. They came to it with an open mind and a lot of ideas. Combined with what I had to add, I think it turned out great.”

McClenny has always displayed an emphasis on songwriting and all of the tracks on Redemption bring that to the forefront. He says that, for him, the process of writing has to come naturally.

“When I try to push it, it doesn’t work out so well,” he says. “I have to search for inspiration. I have a joke everytime I get writer’s block: ‘I need to break up with someone soon to get over this damn writer’s block.’”

Writer’s block doesn’t seem to have been a problem for McClenny on Redemption and with the help of a few friends, including Nick Gibson who played lead guitar on a couple of tracks, he has put out one of the best CDs that early 2010 could hope for.

“Everything he touches seems to turn to gold,” adds McClenny about Gibson.

McClenny’s plans for the album include getting it to a larger audience than some of his previous releases, but he is very glad for all of his fans throughout Oklahoma and beyond.

“I can’t thank the local fans enough for everything they have done for me and I hope they continue to enjoy what I put out,” McClenny says. “I hope everyone that can will make it out to Ell’s [for the release party]. The more the merrier.”

In recent months, McClenny parted ways with longtime bandmate and collaborator Ryan Stallings, who moved to Austin, Texas, and joined the alt-funk band Achachay, which recently returned to Stillwater for a show of their own at Ell’s last month. The bittersweet parting left McClenny looking for a new bass player and revamping his band but they have been in heavy rehearsals and preparing to hit the circuit again. In fact, McClenny doesn’t rule out a move to Austin himself, something that has been on his mind for a while to further his music career.

“Austin is something that is still on the front of my mind,” he says. “Plans do change and you never know where things are going to take you. I will just leave it at that.”

The former comparisons between Stillwater and Austin -- both were mutually considered musical meccas during the rise of the Red Dirt music movement and Austin is still a hotbed of up-and-coming musical acts -- are no doubt one of the reasons for McClenny’s buried desire to head south. Though he still remains hopeful for a resurgence of the good old days.

“I think the Stillwater music scene is slowing a bit,” he explains. “We don’t see as much live music in town as we used to but that’s what happens in my experience. Bands start here then move on to a bigger venue. That’s just the natural course of the business anywhere you go. But dont worry, it will pick up soon just like it has in the past.”

Help Stillwater keep one of its soon-to-be-legendary singer/songwriters home where he belongs by attending the CD Release Party for Redemption at Ell’s Saturday, February 6. For more information, look up McClenny on MySpace.