My artist spirit has always had a strong connection to Los Angeles, but I never really understood “why” until now. Over the course of my career I have written and recorded five personal songs about LA that have somehow morphed into what I call a “Five Song Cycle” that has taken years to unravel and reveal. When I was about to turn 50, and reflecting on my life, I was randomly prompted to create a playlist that strung together these five songs specifically in the chronological order in which I had written them. I had never listened to them together as a complete body of work. When I did, it was a deluge of revelations. Via quiet reflection, some journaling and doing a deep dive into my own lyrics, I soon began to discover that these five songs, once experienced together, were like a treasure map to a love letter that my younger self was writing to my older self, and I didn’t even realize it. For 25 years, their mystery, message and purpose laid dormant until strung together, awakening the story of the lost part of my creative soul, the one I now call the Canyon Angel. She is a spirit that resides in Los Angeles and has been cosmically reaching out to me, geographically and through time to find me and sing me back home at exactly the right moment by communicating the poignant revelations in these inspired songs. For years she was writing to me, through me. I call this five song cycle my “Laurel Canyon Love Letter”.

1997
The Calling
I'm Not Defeated

©1997 Music & Lyrics by Anna Wilson, Kevin Montgomery, Matt Rollings

LA City, Angel Town
Keep my dream in your lost and found
I’m headed out; I’m headed east
But I’ll be back to free the beast

My true love, it’s your brown eyed girl
Guard my heart against the world
I’ll think of you, it’ll get me by
While I find the reasons my eyes cry

I’m not defeated
Not yet, defeated
Just gotta catch my breath for a while
For a while

Endless journey, ribbon of gray
Hold my soul as I pray
Give me peace cause I’m in hell
I don’t know how to love myself (but)

I’m not defeated
Not yet, defeated
Just gotta catch my breath for a while
For a while

The sound of my wheels Returning
Through the dark night
Sings me home
Sings me home
Sings me home to you

LA City, Angel Town
Keep my dream
In your lost and found
I’m headed out
From back east
I’m coming back
To free the beast

1998
The Experience
The Long Way

©1998 Music & Lyrics by Anna Wilson

Drive 405
3am ride cross an asphalt line
You do what you do so you can survive
Drive 405

South 101
We used to gun it just for fun
Now it’s just one of those Hollywood runs
South 101

Move this cart of memories and emotional baggage
Move this carriage of dreams and what could have been salvaged

Drive canyon drive
Laurel she runs to Mulholland’s sign
She carries me over those city lights
Drive canyon drive

Move this cage of steel it is my jailor
Move this house on wheels that always trails her

So run baby run
Straight down the boulevard of the setting sun
Where they rock n roll until the soul is numb
Run baby run

To the sweet PCH
At the foot of her foam ocean grave
Where the ashes stir
I whisper “Baby nothin’ has changed”
Still take the long way through LA
Just to say hey

Drive 405
South 101 to Laurel’s run
Then down through the boulevard of the setting sun
I’d rather take
The long way
Cause it was our way
The Long Way

2016
The History
Selma Avenue
Selma Avenue

©2016 Music & Lyrics by Anna Wilson

All those troubadours
Walked through your doors
Desperados of the truth
So take it easy baby
You have saved me
Selma Avenue

I'm standing on your shoulders at the door
But no one seems to answer anymore
You opened with goodbye
And tried to spare me from the fight
As if to be kind

When the Pennywhistle blew it broke some hearts
It was just the dream of two that set the spark
But in its ash a phoenix rose
And with it, it took Shiloh's soul
So the story goes
You saw it all unfold

When the thrill was still around
how sweet the sound
But then California waved to those old pals
And some of that amazing grace
That shined through in those early days
Still remained
And it called my name

From Selma Avenue
Your red light shined for truth
And led me straight to you
In my own time
And when my dreams came true
I was singin’ my song for you
In the tracks of my years
In between each line
I never dreamed that I’d ever say goodbye
To Selma Avenue

But like a thief in the night
The machines came
As soon as pen hit paper
Your soul is what remained
When all the rest was washed away
Your song played
And it got carried on the wind
Where it will sing on once again
...and again...and again...and again
From Selma Avenue

Yeah down on Selma Avenue
There were a chosen few
Who carved their mark in you
For all time

2018
The Understanding
The Gates Of Rossmore

©2018 Music & Lyrics by Anna Wilson

Roses line the gates
On a street in the City of the Angels
Where every oil lamp keeps a flame that never burns out
And the elder stones in the garden path
Echo through the park, reveal the past
Calling out for me from behind the brick and mortar masks
Of weathered walls I know I have been behind
And rooms I know I’ve still yet to find

Memory is a funny thing
It lives beyond its own reckoning
And when it wraps its arms around me I am understood
And tapestries unfold with stories still untold
I’m welcomed by a friend who calls me in

The Gates of Rossmore
Got nothing to hide
They open, close
Wide from either side
No the Gates of Rossmore
Won’t fence me in
They know where I’m goin’
And they know where I’ve been

Lyin’ here with you
In the safety of your arms
No I haven’t felt this way in such a long time
I’d forgotten what it’s like
To have the pain taken away
By a vessel’s vale that understands the timeline
Mystic dreams of you, imaginary truths
Or a portalto a plane that calls me in

The Gates of Rossmore
Got nothing to hide
They open, close
Wide from either side
No the Gates of Rossmore
Won’t fence me in
They know where I’m goin’
And they know where I’ve been

Will the mother of my muse
Return her when my time is through
To find another heart cling to
Another soul to sing through?
Or will she just be taken
As the hourglass is breakin’
To that haven safe behind the Gates of Rossmore?
Holy ground
It’s where I was lost
Where I am found

2020
The Reconciling
Canyon Angel

©2020 Music & Lyrics by Anna Wilson

Canyon Angel, with your spirit in the sky
You were born late to keep the flame alive
Time is illusion on this California drive
Canyon Angel ride

Sweet truths and treasures blur the fading lines
You’ve been singin’ your song like a traveler in disguise
Belief will get you down the road you go tonight
Canyon Angel fly

You will never fear, you will never fear
The echo callin’ from behind
You will never fear, you will never fear

The windin’ road that leads to the other side
Canyon Angel ride
Canyon Angel fly

Canyon Angel
California Drive
You know you can’t go back
It’s enough to make you cry
Forever faithful
A keeper of the light
Canyon Angel ride
Canyon Angel fly
Canyon Angel ride
Canyon Angel fly
Canyon Angel ride
Ride on

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Anna WilsoN - bio

Anna Wilson is a critically acclaimed recording artist with a voice that Jazz Times likens to “crème de cocoa.”  Her seven studio albums spanning a thirty-year career have garnered rave reviews and she has been hailed as the queen of the country-jazz duet for her critically acclaimed Countrypolitan Duets album that has her singing alongside Kenny Rogers, Ray Price, Connie Smith, Keith Urban, Rascal Flatts, Larry Carlton and others. Additionally, she has garnered honors as an award-winning ASCAP songwriter, penned the global theme song for Habitat for Humanity International, and has had her songs appear on over seven million RIAA certified records for artists such as Lady A, Reba McEntire, Billy Ray Cyrus, Chuck Wicks and more.

Her latest project is a documentary film in-the-making called “Canyon Angel”.  An inspirational tale that chronicles a 25-year musical journey that she didn’t even realize she was on until the dawning of her 50th decade.  A journey that took her from her hometown of Chester Springs, Pennsylvania to Nashville to Los Angeles and back.  Wilson says, “I’ve had a very diverse career that has blended genres in unique ways but at the heart of my creative soul has always been a deep connection to the musical movement of Laurel Canyon that I never got to be a part of simply because I was born too late. This film is the story of my redemptive journey to uncover, rediscover and reclaim the lost piece of my creative soul that I call the Canyon Angel.”

Her Americana duo, Troubadour 77, that she formed in 2016 with husband and hit songwriter Monty Powell was the impetus that set Wilson on the course to discover her Canyon Angel doppelganger. Although it may seem like an odd departure from her many jazz albums and country songwriting accolades, Wilson indicates that first and foremost she is a songwriter and that her songs have always been the driving force in everything she does.  “Even on my vocal jazz projects it was always about the original jazz songs I wrote way more than the standards of the genre. T77, as we sometimes call ourselves, is representative of the music I have always wanted to make. It comes from a true singer-songwriter perspective.”

This dynamic and diverse songbird has even more things to sing about as she recently co-wrote and co-stars in a two-person musical with her Troubadour 77 partner, Monty Powell, called “Songstars” that debuted with a residency at the historic Woolworth Theatre in Nashville. Wilson remarks, “The best way to describe it is, Springsteen on Broadway meets the hit movie Once meets The Bluebird Cafe on steroids!”  It’s a scripted songwriter concert-play that tells her and Powell’s personal story of chasing dreams and finding love amid the backdrop of their separate and combined Nashville pilgrimages to songwriting success.

As for giving back, Wilson is all hands on deck.  Community outreach is another important aspect of her career and she continually tries to find ways to marry her music with charities that she is passionate about. She is widely known for her Habitat for Humanity International theme song “A House, A Home” that garnered worldwide attention when it appeared in the charity’s public service announcements and received over $5 million in free advertising worldwide.  She also penned and Olympic inspired song called “Spirit” whose royalties benefited Women’s Ski Jumping USA when they made their debut in Sochi, Russia in 2014. The proceeds were given directly to the organization to help support women ski jumpers around the world and advocate for gender equality in sport.

Born and raised in Chester Springs, Pennsylvania, and a graduate of Loyola University in Maryland, Anna Wilson splits her time between Nashville, the mountains of Colorado and the Florida Keys where she enjoys golf, skiing, culinary experiences, performing live and recording innovative album projects that have appeal to wide audiences. Her music is engaging and effortless as she weaves her soulful, vulnerable and richly textured voice through everything she does.