In Memoriam: Will Owsley

I just received a shocking bit of news from a friend. Alabama-based musician Will Owsley, power-pop singer-songwriter, engineer and producer, as well as session and touring guitarist for artists such as Amy Grant, Shania Twain, and Faith Hill, died yesterday of an apparent suicide. Very few people, especially people who read this blog, are likely to have ever heard of Owsley outside of my occasional mention of him here, but he was a fantastic musician, deserving of far more recognition than he received.

Following the one-and-only album with his first band, The Semantics (released only in Japan even though it was a Nashville-based group), he released his self-titled debut album in 1999, which is one of my favorites. If you haven't checked this album out I urge you to do so, especially if you like anything remotely of a power-pop bent, from The Beatles all the way through to recent practitioners of the genre like The Click Five.

Here's an excellent article I found on the web, written by someone who was clearly a devoted fan. I must admit I wasn't very fond of his last album, 2004's "The Hard Way" ... but now I'll forever wonder what he might have recorded next....