3 Questions with Musician Jono Manson

Santa Fe-based musician and producer Jono Manson hasn’t released a solo album since 2020′s Silver Moon, but with the forthcoming Stars Enough to Guide Me (out on March 31 from Nashville’s Blue Rose Music), Manson is back with, he says, some of the best songs of his storied career. Part of the recipe was taking a break—though that didn’t mean he wasn’t collaborating, guesting on other productions or writing songs of his own. Manson says he really feels like he’s hit a new point in his career as a singer-songwriter and riding that good feeling that comes from finishing a project. He has assembled a veritable army of guest players for the record, and he’ll unleash some of the songs for the first time live with a show at Santa Fe’s Tumbleroot Brewery & Distillery (7:30 pm Friday, April 7. $15. 2791 Agua Fría St., (505) 303-3808). Before then, we wanted to check in and see how the man (and myth and legend) has been faring. Did you not know Manson’s a super-sweetheart? Well, he is. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What’s the impetus behind the record? Is this just, you had enough songs and it organically became a thing, or did you set out to make a record?

Yeah, I did set out to make a record. Y’know, I’ve been so busy in this phase of my professional life curating projects for other people that carving out the creative time for myself has been...I wouldn’t say a chore, but I’ve had to make a conscious effort to do that. When I work on records for other people, I give of myself as if it were my own thing. I really get invested. So what’s different, I think, about this particular project is that I made a conscious effort to steer the focus of my creative energy back to my own process. And I did write a lot of songs as a matter of fact. I wrote and I waited until I had more songs and I picked the ones that would work best in this collection. There are definitely some common themes that run through it. There’s a little bit more of me; a lot more autobiographical stuff than records I’ve done in the past. There are some songs that speak more directly to where I feel I am in my life at this point, and without the adventures and experiences I’ve had over the past few years—I needed that.

You say it’s more autobiographical than things you’ve done and you say ‘where you are in life in this point.’ Are you feeling a certain way? Are you feeling wistful?

Actually, I feel like, in some ways, I’m really just coming into my own. I don’t feel wistful at all. I feel optimistic and hopeful, you know, at the same time. For example, the last song on my record is called ‘Late Bloomer.’ And that does speak to the subject of self-discovery later in the game. I became a parent later in life, I became a lot of things at this point in my life that are not necessarily typical of someone, you know, in their 60s and also as a songwriter.

I feel like I’m really getting better. I feel like I’m still learning and growing. But then, I have a ways to go, which is a good feeling. I think any time you get to the point where you say, ‘This is the best shit I can possibly do,’ that’s when you’re in trouble. Because then it’s like, what are you going to do next? I look at a lot of other successful and well-known songwriters, and you can sort of chart the arc of their creative work to the point where you feel like, OK, they peaked at this point. Maybe there are some peaks and valleys, but I don’t feel like I have reached that peak. I have a-ha moments where I say, ‘Oh! this is how you do it!’ Part of it, I think comes from doing it over many years, and part of it comes from the fact that I did take a break when I was working on records for everyone and their uncle. And then when I went back to my own creative thing...maybe I’m doing it with a fresher perspective.

You’re kind of known for being a collaborator. Is this a similar story on the new album?

The core band on the record are all musicians who are based here in New Mexico. Trevor Bahnson sings with me on a song, and he’s just remarkable as a musician. David Berkeley. There’s a duet with Eliza Gilkyson, though this isn’t my ‘Tony Bennett sings with anybody who shows up,’ record. [Blues Traveler’s] John Popper is on the record, he and I go way back, and Crystal Bowersox, who is an artist I’ve been working with for...years. It’s always a collaborative process, and I think that’s how I function. I don’t have formal training as a musician. I started by forming a band with my friends when I was a little kid, you know, and we weren’t good enough to copy songs off the radio, so we wrote our own songs. That’s really how my whole creative process and work ethic was born—getting together with a group of people I felt some form of creative kinship with.