#2460 "Long Reach Lane"

John Denver and James Taylor both had hit songs about country roads. Those songs and many more about quiet, country living, are on my playlist. I listened to both of them while I painted away on this view of Long reach Lane. Those lyrics brought back wonderful memories of growing up and rambling in the woods. I took the photo the same day that I snapped the image for #2457 "Sumac Tangle". The quiet isolation of living at the end of the lane resonates in both of those songs. I wanted to kept the brush strokes loose and strong. There was no need for any detail. It was snowing outside so I was in the Singleton Studio in front of the wood stove. 

"Country Road" is a song written and performed by James Taylor. It appears on his 1970 second album, Sweet Baby James. The song was inspired by Somerset Street in Belmont, Massachusetts, a wooded road running adjacent to the land owned by McLean Hospital where Taylor had committed himself in 1965 to receive treatment for depression. The re-recorded Country Road single version was recorded and mixed at Crystal-Sound, December 30, 1970. 

"Take Me Home, Country Roads", also known simply as "Take Me Home" or "Country Roads", is a song written by Bill Danoff, Taffy Nivert and John Denver about West Virginia. Inspiration for the song had come while Nivert and Danoff, who were married, were driving along Clopper Road in nearby Montgomery County, Maryland to a Nivert family reunion in Gaithersburg. Country roads, take me home To the place I belong West Virginia, mountain mama Take me home, country roads. The song has a prominent status as an iconic symbol of West Virginia, which it describes as "Almost Heaven". In March 2014, it became one of the four official state anthems of West Virginia. 

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