CD by Jenny Mahan--Growing Up Wild

“One listen and you're smitten with GROWING UP WILD… Mahan's vocals range from earnest to plaintive, touching the soul with primitive images of the wild that run deep and far from the currents of pop music.” -- Northern Express

“…A delightful romp along the shores of northern living…”
--Konnie LeMay, Managing Editor, Lake Superior Magazine

Ease into the peaceful, invigorating spirit of the Great Lakes and surrounding Northwoods with a new CD by singer/songwriter Jenny Mahan. Growing Up Wild features 12 songs composed and performed by this artist, who grew up exploring the Great Lakes with her family as her parents photographed and wrote about the ecosystem. “Spending extended time exploring wild places was the soul of my childhood,” says Jenny, whose early memories include: “coming face to face with moose on the trail, loon songs echoing through my sleep, and paddling into rough weather.”

As she grew up, Jenny chose jobs that continued to take her into the backcountry, and even life in a tipi. All the while her connection with the Great Lakes remained strong: “After many adventures in different parts of the country, I found my spirit being called back to the Northwoods and Great Lakes of my childhood.” For years Jenny lived in a self-built strawbale cabin; today she continues to strive to integrate ecological design and sustainable living techniques into her daily life. “It is from all the quiet and crazy, the powerful and tender times along this path that the stories and tunes for my songs have sprung.”

Such unique life experiences have inspired an equally unique collection of songs, with touches of sound effects such as loon calls, wolves howling, birds, frogs, and even a lighthouse foghorn. These sound effects were recorded in her family's travels and on her homestead. Her vocals and acoustic guitar are accompanied here and there by mouth harp, flute, skin drum, castanets, and ocarina.

Growing Up Wild has already received enthusiastic reviews. (See above for two excerpts.) When the first track on the CD, “Lake Superior”, was recently featured on the television program, Michigan Magazine, co-host Barry Stutesman wrote: “Jenny's music is truly a spiritual experience into the very essence of Lake Superior! The effortless blending of the melody and lyrics was a true delight.” Co-host Dell Vaughan added: “The lyrics and music are beautifully arranged and inspiring to the soul.” Lakeland Boating Magazine wrote: “...Growing Up Wild captures her spirit and love of nature, the Great Lakes and the Northwoods areas.” And according to Lake Superior Magazine: “Her characterizations might be compared to an early Joan Baez.”

Song List--Growing Up Wild

1. Lake Superior (4:13)
2. Walking Song (3:32)
3. Over the Moon (5:38)
4. Passage Island (3:24)
5. Hearth Song (3:35)
6. Ode to an Orange Camper (3:25)
7. Prayer Song (4:15)
8. Big Pine Country (3:58)
9. Ride the Waves (3:03)
10. Welcome Home (3:46)
11. Just a Girl (3:17)
12. Season of Hope (3:36)

Jenny has been offering wholesome, natural products through
Marsh Meadows Natural
Soaps and Sundries

Now you can also find her handmade mild soaps (handcrafted with love in the Northwoods of Wisconsin near Lake Superior), along with photos by Joel Austin
at Big Bear Sundries.

Springing from a lifetime immersed in the natural world, each song is unique:

--You can almost touch the wood lilies and smell the balsam as Jenny travels with Anna Hoge to Passage Island on this lightkeeper's daughter's first return to the island that was her home more than 40 years before. Stroll through the moss and lichens of the island's enchanted forest and hear the foghorn calling to fog-enshrouded ships rumbling by.

--Ride with Jenny and her family in an aging, underpowered VW camper as they bounce down wild roads exploring the Great Lakes. Smell the overheating engine and hear the diesel clatter, but through it all savor the Northcountry landscape and the “kind folks who helped us, each time that old VW died.”

--Or “run to the ridgetop” and “glide o'er the waves” of Lake Superior as Jenny celebrates the greatest of the Great Lakes.

All of Jenny's music reflects her connection to the natural world, and her commitment “to stand up for what's good and true.”

For ordering information, click here.

For information on Jenny's new CD, "Homespun", click here.

For a schedule of performances by Jenny,
click here.

Lyrics to "LAKE SUPERIOR", by Jenny Mahan

I've strolled ’long the ocean, and hiked alpine fields,
and still never found a place I'd rather be,
than this freshwater sea and her Northwoods blessing.
Today my heart's not a mile from the shore.

CHORUS:
And it's run to the ridgetop
where the thunderheads roll.
Dance 'neath the stars with their dust in my bones.
And it's glide o'er the waves that still sculpt these stones.
And it's less than a mile to the shore.

Gaze to the sunset, and praise the ripe moon.
Soak in the songs of the moose and the loon.
And lace up those boots, and please hike a bit faster,
’Cause we're less than a mile from the shore.

CHORUS

We rise with blue water, and look to the horizon,
that seals the edge of the world.
We've stroked through the mist, let's ride this last wavecrest,
as we celebrate this journey on the shore.

It all comes together on this rocky ribbon,
where the water laps the land and the flesh feels the soul.
We're of the same stuff as the heron and the greenstone,
with the rest of creation here on the shore.

CHORUS

And it's less than a mile to the shore.

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