A coherent and compelling musical portrait of modern America, while drawing inspiration from legendary musicians - Robert Johnson, The Carter Family, Woody Guthrie - who became icons of their own difficult times. 16 cuts and over an hour of music.

Track List

1. Times We're Living In (3:49) - folk anthem
2. These Shoes (3:25) - uptempo folk
3. Worried Man Blues (4:48) - trad., medium Americana
4. Something Worth Standing For (4:01) - uptempo Americana
5. Hour of Darkness (3:51) - dark slow slide blues
6. Ansel Adams (3:48) - medium folk
7. Bridges (4:40) - pop/folk ballad
8. Count Your Blessings (4:02) - medium blues, duet with Pat Wictor
9. Wildwood Flower/The Old Hundred Road (3:29) - uptempo oldtime instrumental
10. Surveillance (3:55) - uptempo loungy/swing
11. George Washington (3:54) - uptempo folk/rock
12. The Fox (3:55) - trad. uptempo folk
13. Cedars (4:05) - contemporary folk
14. Safe Home (4:06) - uptempo oldtime Appalachian
15. Wind Whispers Your Name (2:29) - a cappella 3-part harmony
16. Crossroads (Revisited) (3:09) - solo slide blues, orig. Robert Johnson 

Something reflects the maturity of a veteran songpoet and seasoned musical artisan. At times he evokes the literate melodic darkness of Richard Shindell, at others the white blues and soul influences along the Mississippi Delta, while still sounding like the familiar rustic poet from the Blue Ridge foothills. He focuses on threads in the American tapestry through the lens of illegal immigrants, of ordinary people clinging to lost treasures of their past, and of those praying for loved ones to safely return from war.

Notable are the rollicking Cajun-meets-Clapton title cut, “Times We’re Living In,” a haunting indictment of the forces that coalesced behind Katrina, “Wind Whispers Your Name,” an a cappella elegy for a fallen soldier, and “Bridges,” a beautiful meditation on the cycles on parenthood co-written with Mary Chapin Carpenter’s keyboardist Jon Carroll. And honoring the “folk process,” McKnight updated lyrics to the traditional “Worried Man Blues” as well as to Robert Johnson’s “Crossroads,” the spooky solo slide blues that closes the album.

While not shy about highlighting social and environmental issues, McKnight studiously avoids the stridency of many socially-conscious songwriters, preferring instead to create musical vignettes that let the listener see circumstances through the eyes of his protagonists. But he recounts, “for two years every time I sat with pen and guitar it seemed that everything came out angry or trite. I finally had to let myself give those emotions a voice, without regard to how they might be received.” The result is that he has taken on many polarizing subjects in a way that transcends popular political labels.

He credits new baby daughter Madeleine with inspiring him to take the challenge. “When I look into her tiny smiling face, I think ‘what kind of man would I be for her, if I am not willing to take a stand for my beliefs?’ And yet in doing so, I rediscovered how much we Americans have in common – we want so many of the same things, we just have different ideas about how to achieve them.”