Garrett Owen’s 2021 release, “Everything Happens to Me,” is a step outside of his usual fast and intricate picking and staccato lyrics – he invited the jazzy piano stylings of Dancey Jenkins (also known as Daniel Creamer from The Texas Gentlemen) onto the studio recording. This video clip shows Owen performing the song solo at The Post at River East in Fort Worth on October 9, 2021.
The song is the third installment of a string of covers produced by Taylor Tatsch at his studio AudioStyles in Dripping Springs, TX earlier this year. (The studio has since moved to Fredericksburg.)
This is Owen’s homage to Chet Baker. The first record Owen fell in love with was Chet Baker Sings. Since then, Owen’s been a self-proclaimed “Chet Baker nut.”
“Everything Happens to Me” catalogues a list of frustrations in life and love.
“It was probably the second Baker song I tried to learn,” said Owen. “It just felt really natural. There’s really no concept I relate to more than trying to do something, then something comes along and rains on your parade.”
The pandemic led to a push and pull around releasing his full-length record, Quiet Lives, After that, Owen figured out a creative way to put content out, knowing he might feel “creatively bankrupt for a little while,” after the process of making a full album.
The series of covers he released this year includes “Heart-Shaped Box” by Nirvana, “Kodachrome” by Paul Simon and “Angeles” by Elliot Smith.
A fifth installment of the series, Leonard Cohen’s “Tonight Will Be Fine,” will be dropped in early December.
Jessica Waffles is a freelance photographer/videographer and regular contributor to KXT.
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