Tami Nielson – Don’t Be Afraid

Description

“It’s the most personal album I’ve ever written, and it is very daunting to put such a raw, exposed, vulnerable part of yourself out there,” remarks Tami Neilson of her new album Don’t Be Afraid. Don’t Be Afraid was nearly left unfinished. With two songs completed and six weeks left to write Tami Neilson unexpectedly lost her father, the patriarch of The Neilson Family band who Tami had toured across Canada with as a young girl opening for the likes of Johnny Cash. It was with her mother and brother’s encouragement that she finished the record as a way of honouring her dad. “I actually inadvertently wrote the title track (without realizing it would be for the album) the week Dad died. ‘Don’t Be Afraid’ was the last song Dad wrote, while in the hospital. He had written the melody, lyrics and everything, but he was on oxygen and could barely breathe to speak. He told me that it was driving him crazy that he had this new song stuck in his head, but had no way of offloading it. It’s an awful feeling, I know, so I said I would bring him in his guitar so he could play it and I’d record it on my phone.