LYNN PATRICK, Water Stones

A two-time Independent Music Award winner for Best New Age Song, veteran guitarist/composer Lynn Patrick is such a master at creating her “optimistic acoustic” fusion of folk, jazz, country and bluegrass that she has practically created her own genre over the past three decades. Beyond competitive accolades and prominent TV placements – including being a featured show songwriter for “The Young and the Restless” – she’s built an impressive catalog of albums over the last three decades, deliberately taking everything at her own pace. One of the benefits of releasing music on her own label is the opportunity to let composing be a natural process to be embraced when she feels inspired by specific experiences and has something meaningful to impart.

On the infectiously engaging, beautifully crafted Water Stones, Lynn’s first collection since Strawberry Boat in 2019, she takes us on an intimate, intensely personal, soul-transformative journey to finding peace, joy and gratitude through some of life’s most intense challenges – a battle with Stage 3 cancer and the passing of her mom. Taking the listener from the liberating, lighthearted, cheerfully rhythmic (not to mention, quirkily titled) “Surfing Lulu” through the free-spirited, wonder filled “Guitar Dance” – perfectly uplifting bookends to the many emotionally impactful expressions – Water Stones emerged from a process of healing through hardship and from a deep appreciation for what is truly beautiful in her life.

Having gone through the darkness of the unimaginable and surviving to share with boldness and vulnerability, Lynn emerges profoundly grateful for her health, her friends, family, music and for the privilege of learning to love with greater compassion and a sense of peace within herself. “Celebrating that feeling is at the heart of this album,” she says. “I titled it Water Stones because it reflects my own transformation, the softening and wisdom that have come from moving through life’s challenges, while also honoring the simple joy of being alive and healthy.

“After experiencing many hardships,” she adds, “my life shifted in profound ways, and I learned to see things differently. As I have gotten older, I have also come to accept aging and life as it is, learning to let go of what I can’t control. In that acceptance, there is a quiet freedom that has deeply shaped both my outlook and this music.”

While many of the pieces draw resonant cathartic power from Lynn’s experience with cancer, the heartfelt emotional core the album is the wistfully reflective, soothingly meditative title track “Water Stones,” which she penned the day her mom passed away. She placed her hand on her heart and began singing a melody for her, feeling the enormity of her passing and the legacy they shared in this world. She then carried that sacred melody to her guitar. The energy and feeling that came through were unconditional love, acceptance, forgiveness, peace and letting go. She says the piece reflects how life moves like water, always changing through birth, death and transformation. That she can share this complex, ever-shifting narrative so eloquently in under three minutes is something of a creative miracle.

Further expounding on the driving metaphor of the album, she says she often thinks about how water shapes stone not through force, but through a process of presence, patience and constant change – a concept that feels deeply true to her own journey. “Water Stones is my reflection on resilience and healing, music meant to soothe, uplift and gently invite listeners inward towards their own renewal. It’s both conceptual and a gathering of pieces that work well together. I also wanted the album to flow, with songs complementing each other and moving through different rhythms, feelings, moods and emotions. The intention is to celebrate and appreciate life’s challenges, to soften what is hard, and to reflect growth, transformation, and evolution, much like water shaping stone.”

Creating a fascinating contrast to the outpouring of love Lynn expressed to her mother through “Water Stones,” the darker toned, mid-tempo movement of “Made Your Escape” carries more edge and seriousness, reflecting on the depth and complexity of her emotions around her father leaving the family when she was only six years old, and the lasting weight of that experience. Although listeners may enjoy the sense of movement and low-key adventure in the rhythms, they’re about one of the most painful aspects of her early life. She wrote the song after a therapy session while working through abandonment issues. The song taps int othe process of healing that old wound.  

It’s ironic that an artist so strongly associated with optimism expresses so much about loss here. She wrote the lilting, gently graceful “Labyrinth Sun” after the death of a close friend. The two used to kayak and paddleboard on a reservoir west of Boulder, not far from her home in the mountains there. They would sometimes paddle to a particular beach they called “Sunset Beach.” One day, her friend made a small labyrinth with stones on the sand. The song is about the memory of that lovely long ago day.

Though not placed together as a “suite” in the tracking, Lynn traverses the evolving terrain of her cancer battle via three of the album’s most compelling tunes. The first of these, the plucky, cheerful and freewheeling “When You Find What You’re Looking For” taps into confronting her own mortality, when she didn’t know what the future would bring. The lifechanging experience led her to develop an enormous appreciation for many things she once took for granted. “There’s a question many people ask themselves,” she says. “If you only had one year left to live, how would you live it?” For me, the answer became clear: to feel deep inner peace, stay positive, love as fully as I can, and live authentically. In that sense, I found what I was looking for, an appreciation for my health, a sense of gratitude, and true inner peace.”

The other three related to confronting and overcoming her illness include the haunting ballad “So Unexpected,” a mournful piece – enhanced by Sandra Wong’s wistful violin – about the shock of finding she had a 6 m tumor on her lung; and the playful, Americana-fired “Finish Line,” which she wrote while going through chemotherapy and features guest violinist Ennion Pelton. In line with the complex emotional shifts of such a process, the tempo of the song started out very slow, then became faster as she started feeling better. Though written about the pandemic era, “Unknown Changes” is something of a companion piece to this one.

Perhaps allowing her a mental break to open up to sweet nostalgic memories in her past, Lynn also graces Water Stones with two pieces that remind her of her childhood in Florida. Ironically, she wrote the spritely, charming “Breezy Sassafras” in the middle of winter while in the mountains of Colorado. “The wind was blowing the snow and the sun was shining, making everything sparkle,” she says. “It made me think of the beach and how much I missed it, the waves, the sand, and the warmth of summer. The song came from my imagination, remembering the feeling of being by the ocean in Florida.”

“Homecoming” is an older song that made perfect thematic sense to include on Water Sign. “The inspiration for this one came from sitting on my mother’s porch in Florida with my sister,” Lynn says. “We looked out at oak trees with Spanish moss, tropical plants, listened to birds singing, and reminisced about our childhood experiences growing up on a lake in the countryside.”

And perhaps no song captures Lynn’s blissful current state of mind as a survivor than “Love Is Here,” a snappy, life affirming gem reflecting the most important thing in her life, perfectly rooted in the present moment. “After everything I’ve been through,” she says, “it reflects feeling more loving, more insightful and more present than ever.”