Listening For Your Call from Orchard Creek Band

Colorado’s Orchard Creek Band has a new single on offer this month, one written by their mandolinist Kevin Slick and Virginia songwriter Mike Mitchell.

Listening For Your Call manages to take a tragic and melancholy situation, and turn it into an uplifting bluegrass number, one that is quite personal for Kevin.

He explained how the song came to be.

“The song originated with a phone call. I was talking to my father in the winter of 2020 as he had entered hospice care. At the end of our call I said that I would call back later in the week, and he replied, ‘I’ll be listening for your call.’

I thought that was a beautiful line so I wrote it down (as all good songwriters should do), and it turned out that was the last thing he said to me as he died soon after. I wanted to use that line in a song but was overwhelmed with all the feelings and memories, so it sat in my notebook for a while.

In a conversation with friend and fellow songwriter Mike Mitchell, I told him about that experience, and he helped me craft all those images and memories into a song. As one might guess, the song is sometimes hard to sing, but other times I just focus on the words Mike helped put together, and enjoy the memories.”

Orchard Creek Band is completed by Dave Richardson on banjo, Keith Murdock on reso-guitar, Jan Springer on guitar, and Todd Ball on bass.

Have a listen to Listening For Your Call

Listening For Your Call from the Orchard Creek Band is available now from popular download and streaming services online, and to radio programmers at AirPlay Direct.

Walk In The Woods from Orchard Creek Band

Colorado’s Orchard Creek Band has just released their first recored project, an EP called Walk In The Woods. It includes six tracks, with both original and classic bluegrass music.

This quintet shares the perennial bluegrass story of meeting each other at a regular jam, and enjoying each other’s music, leading to the formation of a performing group. That led to numerous gigs around Boulder, and a demand for a studio album, which has been met in this new year.

Orchard Creek has agreed to share the title track with our readers, one which mandolinist Kevin Slick describes thusly.

“The song was written by guitarist and vocalist Jan Springer. She began the song by describing a walk in the woods with her husband. At first it was a song about those times when you’re first meeting someone and looking for the ways in which you might make a life together. She then began to weave in her experiences of playing for hospice patients and their families, particular those with dementia. The last verses of the song describe a partner whose memory is fading, and a partner searching for a final moment where the memories come alive once more.”

Along with Jan and Kevin, Orchard Creek Band is Dave Richardson on banjo, Keith Murdock on reso-guitar, and Roz Weller on bass.

Walk In The Woods, both single and EP, is available now wherever you stream or download music online. Radio programmers can get the tracks via AirPlay Direct.

Foldin’ video from Orchard Creek Band

Orchard Creek Band is a new group on Colorado’s Front Range, who sprung from the region’s vibrant jam scene.

From Denver to Boulder there are jam sessions most every night of the week at a bar or coffeehouse, allowing pickers to make new friends, and find new picking’ partners.

Orchard Creek consists of Dave Richardson on banjo, Keith Murdock on reso-guitar, Jan Springer on guitar, Kevin Slick on mandolin, and Roz Weller on bass. All the members have musical experiences both in and outside of bluegrass, encompassing pop, punk, country, and Gospel.

Here’s a live performance video of their song, Foldin’, which uses a series of poker idioms to describe a break up.

An album is in the works for later this year.

You can keep up with The Orchard Creek Band online.

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