by Brittney Corridean
Earlier this month, Chris Denny began his tour over on the west coast. He sounds to be in good spirits as I could hear the open air of the freeway on the other end of his cell phone.
“Seattle was just great; great crowd, great sound. The place was packed,” Denny says. “I would say that was my favorite night of the tour so far.”
Even while on the road, Denny is constantly working. His mind is always wondering through different ideas and most of his songs are created on the spot when inspiration strikes. For example, he and his wife were sitting on the porch one day and they started to write “Happy/Sad” as a joke. It turned out to be one of his favorites.
“I don’t ever write anything down,” Denny says “If something is worth remembering, I have my wife sit down with me and write it out as it comes.”
Denny was born in Arkansas and from as long as he could remember, he wanted to sing. The first guitar Denny ever received was from his grandfather at a very young age. He picked up how to play rather innately and would bust out some old country for his grandfather from time to time. “He told me that if I had something special, that I could be really good if I stuck with it.”
Denny believes in paying homage to past musicians to create new music. Some of his most influential artists are Charley Pride and Johnny Horton- or at least when it comes to the classics. When it comes to more recent country artists, he does get into some Dwight Yorkam. However, he doesn’t consider himself too into the more modern “pop-culture”.
Even though Denny has had some dark times in his past, his mind set and attitude are quite positive now. He believes that in life you just have to move forward and let things work out.
“Sometimes I get a little down when I look back, but I do believe everything happens for a reason. The reason can be whatever you make it. We create it [that reason] to give us the strength we need…I’ve gained a lot of wisdom and can get pretty philosophical at times,” Denny states about looking at things with a positive perspective.
Despite the dusty skeletons in the closest, Denny has had some tremendous opportunities since signing with Partisan records. He has released a new album and is currently on tour with Strand of Oaks, which he is very grateful for. You can catch them playing at Boot and Saddle on September 19th and 20th.
Last time Denny was in our home state, PA, he lost his temporary tags and ran into some conflicts with the law. Nothing serious, but we got a good laugh out of the story. While he and his wife (also best friends, companion…someone is in love!) are here, he doesn’t think he will have too much down time to explore our historic city, but he does have some friends out in Lancaster he would like to catch up with. Hopefully he was able to do so when the tour stopped in York, PA last night.
“For now, it’s all just about the music and moving forward,” Denny says.
