Singer/songwriter, poet, and all-around storyteller, Scott Nolan, has been treating audiences to introspective, moving art his entire career. Incorporating short poetry readings from his debut poetry book, Moon Was a Feather, and songs from his massive collection, his upcoming Harvest Sun set will for sure be a feast for the soul.
Scott spoke with us about how music and poetry helped him through a difficult youth, finding his footing as a performer, and what it means to continue creating art.
How did you get started in writing and recording?
I started playing guitar probably around six years old. I was always attracted to music, but no music teachers really had much to do with me. My first music teacher fired me, and I was chased out of junior high band. I fumbled around until maybe my very young teens when I first discovered Osborne Village. There I met Lenny Broad, a revered virtuoso guitar player and his son Chet. Chet was the first person that sat with me in any form or capacity as a teacher and recognized that not all kids learn the same way. The writing [started] around eleven or twelve. During a difficult period of my adolescence, I had a cousin who committed a murder and wound up spending the rest of his life in a prison in California. Through my difficult adolescence and substance abuse and all kinds of stuff, he mentored me through prison letters from somewhere around 11 on, maybe when he first turned his life around with poetry.
I often say at the end of violence is poetry. As a young kid, I had one foot in music, and the rest of me was in a darker place. I had this cousin, and he was a heavy guy, somebody that you looked up to whether it was for the right reasons or not. He was writing to me, and he would always encourage the music and encourage the poetry. He would send me poets’ names. He would take books out of the prison library and mail them to me. I always had that whether I knew what it was at the time or whether I could fully appreciate it at the time.
Scott spoke with us about how music and poetry helped him through a difficult youth, finding his footing as a performer, and what it means to continue creating art.
How did you get started in writing and recording?
I started playing guitar probably around six years old. I was always attracted to music, but no music teachers really had much to do with me. My first music teacher fired me, and I was chased out of junior high band. I fumbled around until maybe my very young teens when I first discovered Osborne Village. There I met Lenny Broad, a revered virtuoso guitar player and his son Chet. Chet was the first person that sat with me in any form or capacity as a teacher and recognized that not all kids learn the same way. The writing [started] around eleven or twelve. During a difficult period of my adolescence, I had a cousin who committed a murder and wound up spending the rest of his life in a prison in California. Through my difficult adolescence and substance abuse and all kinds of stuff, he mentored me through prison letters from somewhere around 11 on, maybe when he first turned his life around with poetry.
I often say at the end of violence is poetry. As a young kid, I had one foot in music, and the rest of me was in a darker place. I had this cousin, and he was a heavy guy, somebody that you looked up to whether it was for the right reasons or not. He was writing to me, and he would always encourage the music and encourage the poetry. He would send me poets’ names. He would take books out of the prison library and mail them to me. I always had that whether I knew what it was at the time or whether I could fully appreciate it at the time.
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