WILLIAMSBURG — American Folk musician David Wilcox is bringing his talents to Williamsburg to close out the 2024-25 Open Door Concert Series hosted by the Williamsburg Presbyterian Church.
Wilcox, who grew up in Ohio, found his love for music in the mid-1980s.
“I have always used music in a very off-label way. There are some people who love music because they wear it like clothing, like to identify them to a certain tribe, and I’ve never done that. For me, it wakes up my heart to a different way of seeing a certain issue or problem,” Wilcox said.
Wilcox released his first album in 1987, which led to him winning the Kerrville Folk Festival in 1988, helping him begin a four-album stint with A&M Records. His 1989 “How Did You Find Me Here” album sold over 100,000 copies by word of mouth.
Wilcox released his latest album, “My Good Friends,” in 2023. On the album, Wilcox used his songwriting talents to explain some of his own deep feelings about things he has gone through in his personal life.
“I love songs that are giving me this vision of how sweet life can be and I’ve always had lots of those songs. But I also love how music is my way of metabolizing sorrow. By metabolizing, I mean breaking it down into something useful that I can trade old pain for compassion and energy and vision and that’s a good trade,” Wilcox said.
Wilcox, whose website boasts a musical medicine section, believes that music can help heal those who consume it.
“There are people who go to see scary movies and it helps them sort of come to terms with the stuff that they are afraid of and not be afraid of fear itself. For me, there’s stuff that is tough to feel that I would be tempted to not feel but in the context of a song, I know that it’s safe and I can go cardio spelunking down into the places where that fear lives and sort of shine the best flashlight in the world which for me is music and realize, ‘okay, there are no monsters’ and that has always been a really good piece of healing for me,” Wilcox said.
Wilcox’s concert in Williamsburg is free and open to the public. The concert will be held at Williamsburg Presbyterian Church, beginning at 4 p.m.
To learn more about Wilcox, visit davidwilcox.com.