by Leslie Lytle, Messenger Staff Writer

“I’m having more fun than I ever imagined,” said David Newton Baker, singer, songwriter, and poet. Baker is quick to point out he is not David Baker of Indie Rock fame, not the late Jazz musician, and not the former editor of the Kenyon Review, career poet and college professor. In 2014, David Newton Baker then a folk-rock singer-songwriter living in a small Colorado mining town lost his ability to sing following treatment for lung cancer and partial removal of one lung. Desperate to scratch “the itch,” Baker started writing poetry. For Baker “the itch is when something bothers me. It could be good, bad or puzzling. I write to understand and connect with others, hoping they’ll say, ‘I get that’ or ‘I hadn’t thought of it that way.’” Baker, who confesses, “I have trouble calling myself a poet” and who for ten years couldn’t sing, just released his first collection of poems, “Haunting My Own House” and has two gigs coming up, performing both original song and covers at 7 p.m., Sunday, April 13, at the Cowan Arts Center and at 7 p.m., Friday, May 1, at the Tennessee Williams Center. What a long, strange trip it’s been.

Baker spent the first 50 years of his life in the metropolitan Fort Worth/Dallas area. “I’ve always written music,” Baker said. In his day job, he wrote music for film and video, mostly corporate, but also children’s entertainment for PBS and The Disney Channel, including soundtracks for the popular Benji dog movies. “I was never curious about life until I was in my forties,” Baker acknowledged. He retired early and moved to a small Colorado town near Telluride. He played and sang at local venues and produced two studio albums. He describes his life as “a train track with tons of sidelines.” Baker lost his comfortable Colorado living accommodations when gentrification moved into town. “I couldn’t afford to live there,” Baker said. “I was looking for anything I could find.”

His nephew, a student at Vanderbilt, directed him to Sewanee when he mentioned he always wanted to live in a small college town. In what Baker calls “the most impulsive thing I’ve ever done,” he talked with his nephew on Sunday, a realtor on Tuesday, flew to Tennessee on Friday, and signed a contract on Monday, buying a small home in Monteagle. Baker had never been to Sewanee, Monteagle, or the Plateau in his life.

Almost immediately, Baker connected with Spoken Word, a twice-monthly Sewanee open-mic writers’ night. “I read my poetry at Spoken Word for seven years before anyone knew I did music,” Baker said. In “Haunting My Own House,” Baker leads the reader into his imagination to join him in making sense of what neither of them quite understand. In “Heirlooms,” questions Baker asks about himself become questions readers find themselves asking about themselves, as well. In poems such as “Making Love” and “Thimble” the reader joins Baker in making fun of the expression “make love” and squandering the thimble full of love “everyone is given on the day they are born” only to discover there is yet more love and no need to make love, because “love makes them.” Brooks Egerton, head of Sewanee Spoken Word, said of Baker, “David is a Sewanee Spoken Word essential. He’s a terrific writer and musician. I cannot imagine our gatherings without him.”

A year ago, someone asked Baker to read song lyrics at an event. “I thought, I wonder if I could sing that. I did. And it went okay,” Baker said, his voice betraying that he was a little amazed he had a voice again. “I started looking for other songs I could sing.” He confided his secret bucket-list wish to lifelong friend Mark Casstevens, a Nashville studio musician who has performed on more than 800 albums with the likes of Dolly Parton, Glen Campbell, Linda Ronstadt, and Johnny Cash. Baker wanted to perform in a session with professional musicians. “I think we can make that happen,” Casstevens told him. Sensing Baker’s shy, introverted nature, Casstevens proposed a radical strategy: a session with a guitarist or keyboard player to lay down a first track of instrumentation, and then Baker working individually with other musicians to flesh-out the song, each musician adding their own creative impetus. “I get to be God for a while,” Baker said, “and the musicians love it. They can be creative and take their time with the leash taken off, without the demands of a high-dollar, intense studio recording session. The vibe is, ‘let’s try this.’”

In his two shows, Baker will sing and play guitar, accompanied by his “virtual band” DNB and Friends, featuring Blair Masters (Garth Brooks keyboardists), Brian Pruitt (Taylor Swift’s drummer), and Jeff King (Reba McEntire’s guitarist), along with other greats including session musicians for Yoyo Ma, Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, and Brooks and Dunn.

When it comes to original composition, music and poetry alike begin with “the itch” for Baker. He admits to not being particularly disciplined about his writing schedule. “I write because I cannot not write,” Baker said.

However impulsive, “the itch” has served Baker well. Find out for yourself. “Haunting My Own House” is available from Amazon and don’t miss an opportunity to spend an evening with DBN and Friends. You’ll be glad you did.