Album Notes

"Hailing from Oregon, Dawson Cowals is a strong, intense performer with well thought out music. Rhythmically intelligent, his pieces all reflect solid relationships between the melodic patterns and the background music. With a voice alternating between Natalie Merchant and Dave Matthews, there is a fearless sense to his vocals, and a level of commitment in his singing that is rare and quite a wonderful thing to hear. If you're into unique performers, solid music and lyrics with some substance to them, check out Dawson Cowals. Nice work from a fearless musician."
- mp3reviews.com

Well, for all of you who have been waiting awhile for Dawson to release some new material, your wait is over. He has put together a "shopping cart" (pun intended when you see the artwork) of songs in a brand new CD, "More In Store". This CD features 6 previously unreleased studio tracks, 6 older songs that were released on earlier CDs that are currently out of print, and 3 live tracks from an hour-long outdoor concert at Waterworks Park Amphitheatre in Vancouver, Washington back on 06-29-2002.

From the opening song of "No Need to Worry" with its DMBesque sax and guitar work to the live Americana of "Before the Sun Sets", the songs on this CD offer encouragement and hope for those who may be struggling in life. Many of the songs showcase Dawson's storytelling style like "Parable", which is a story of redemption following the biblical parable of the prodigal son to "Your Face", a wedding song he wrote for a friend about how dazed he felt the first time he saw his wife's face.

This is Dawson's 10th full-length release since 1999's "Swirling Waters Tug", and it delivers something for everyone. The shopping cart metaphor truly applies to not only the variety of songs, but the genres, instrumentation, and emotions each evoke as well. If you enjoy finely crafted lyrics delivered with an honest passion and backed up by stunning acoustic guitar work then you owe it to yourself to check out this CD. Fans of Dave Matthews, John Mayer, and Bebo Norman will not be disappointed.

Dawson has been writing music for over 14 years and has a total of 10 full-length CDs containing over 130 unique songs between them. Some of the more recent recordings include his modern Christmas collection featuring the smash-hit title track, "Born Is the King"; his full-length studio recording "Don't Look Back" with songs like "Green", "Seraph's Wings", and "Without You"; an all-acoustic collection of new and older favorites called "Unplugged" with songs such as "I'm Not That Strong" and "Sticks & Stones"; to the most recent live concert release, "Live at the Solid Rock Cafe 10.12.2001", with 17 songs for a play time of almost 80 minutes!

Besides writing and performing the songs on this CD, Dawson also did the graphic design work for the packaging. When he isn't busy singing he also does design work for many other artists from the Pacific Northwest to Australia. If you look closely at the cover you will notice that a copy of the CD you are holding is already in the picture sitting in the shopping cart. Of course since that itself is the cover artwork it generates the illusion that there are an infinite number of copies of the CD repeating. Lyrics are included in the booklet for those of you who like to read along while listening.

Dawson has played in small coffee shop venues and for outdoor amphitheatre crowds of thousands, but wherever you hear him you will come away feeling that you had the chance to share an incredible evening of acoustic storytelling with a from-the-heart performer. For a complete history, biography, discography and more please visit Dawson's official site on the web: http://www.dawsoncowals.com