Tobacco & Rose (Richard Moody) Premieres Charming Single “Wooded Vale”

Some musicians are able to get into a recording studio and just start writing, but that process is far too perfunctory for Richard Moody of Tobacco & Rose. That’s quite apparent when you hear the story behind how he wrote the song “Wooded Vale” and how he writes in general.

Moody is a veteran of the Canadian music scene, having been an active part of it for three decades. He has written and toured with Deva Premal, Miten, The Wailin’ Jennys, Steven Fearing, and Acoustically Inclined. He was pleased with the success he was having, but something felt amiss. This led him to travel to India, where he studied yoga and yogic philosophy. And it opened a pathway to the artist he is today, one who is spiritualized and uses music as an avenue toward meaning and purpose.

Enlightening us on the setting and circumstances that led to the writing of “Wooded Vale,” Moody shares with us:

“Several years ago, I spent 10 days up on an island in the Strait of Georgia, between Vancouver Island and the mainland of British Columbia. There were about 15 of us working with various plant medicines, some from the local region and others from the Peruvian Amazon. By night, we were sitting in ceremony; by day, we were observing noble silence at our solo campsites, getting ‘familiar’ with the energy of the plants we had been given to work with. Mine was called Chiric Sanango, a Peruvian master plant, a shrub that was said to help with vitality and to teach spiritual lessons. I’m not sure I learnt any of those lessons, but I did feel like I ‘downloaded’ a special song.

“In this world of mental distraction, one could go stir crazy, having to sit by oneself without one’s phone, and without conversation. But I had my guitar with me, a notepad, and a lawn chair, and something prompted me to plop myself down in the middle of a dirt road and start writing. Incidentally, I adopted this writing method a few more times on later retreats with success.

“In addition to the plop-your-chair-in-the-middle-of-the-road method, I employed the describe-the-cool-things-you-see-around-you method, and what I saw around me were eagles, butterflies, hummingbirds, cedar trees, creeks in ravines, sunrises, sunsets, mosquitos, and endless natural beauty. It was probably the easiest song I ever got to write. The only thing listed in the song that I didn’t see was a ‘field of clover,’ but I needed a rhyme for ‘over.’ Full transparency.

“The song, like much of my work, is in praise of and in gratitude to nature. Revelling in the glory of it. We have become caught up in our devices, our social media, the pressures of surviving an ever-accelerating existence, and, for me, the song sums up the feeling of slowing down and being reconnected to Mother Nature, of being re-wilded.”

Elaborating on the importance of “Wooded Vale” to his songwriting adventure, Moody states:

“This song also, for better or worse, started my Tobacco & Rose songwriting project. I’ve spent most of my life as a touring violinist, and I hadn’t written a song or played much guitar in years. ‘Wooded Vale’ was the beginning of a body of writing that has been one of the great joys of my life. I will say that the promotion and dissemination of the project are the opposite of what the song is about, with all the social media involvement and big-tech subservience that seem to be the lot of the modern independent artist. But such is life, and, with any luck, the music gets out to many who can relate to the same joy I felt sitting by the ‘Wooded Vale.’”

Moody’s travels around the world have set the stage for Tobacco & Rose. During a period of truth-seeking, he was introduced to the Amazonian plant medicine ayahuasca by Shipibo shamans of the Upper Amazon. They work with a variety of plants for use in healing and teaching. Moody’s exposure to these substances was game-changing for him. Taking these lessons and teachings, he has funnelled them into Tobacco & Rose, using them as a means to integrate his passions for music and healing. He has taken this opportunity to use Tobacco & Rose as an avenue toward making music that uplifts and inspires. It’s all very authentic and created against the backdrop of the singer-songwriter music that Moody grew up loving, like Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell.

There’s much more to discover on the debut self-titled Tobacco & Rose album, which will be out on April 25th. If you’re looking to add some spirituality to your lif,e or maybe you just like singer-songwriter music, then either way, Moody has got you covered with Tobacco & Rose.

Tobacco & Rose ‘Tobacco & Rose’ album artwork