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Wide Open is the tenth studio album by American musician Michael McDonald, released on September 15, 2017 by Chonin Records and BMG. Shannon Forrest and McDonald produced the album. Wide Open is McDonald's first album of original material in 16 years since In the Spirit: A Christmas Album (2001).
Background
In an interview with Billboard, McDonald said many of the songs on Wide Open have to do with sobriety: "I realized that a lot of the songs, I put them in different context, storyline wise, but if they’re about anything, they’re about my coming to terms with my living out in the open and learning to live without substances to fill the hole, without self-medicating."
AllMusic senior editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine found that while McDonald "happily trades on the slow-burning R&B grooves and soft rock melodicism that made him a star in the '70s and '80s, there's not much of a feeling of pandering nostalgia here. Instead, McDonald seems to be integrating all his personas – the soul true believer, the godfather of smooth – in a record that not only feels true but, song for song, is sturdier than nearly all of the albums he recorded at his popular peak."
Track listing
All tracks produced by Michael McDonald and Shannon Forrest.
Michael McDonald – lead and backing vocals, Wurlitzer organ (1, 4, 9, 10), electric guitar (1), horn arrangements (1), acoustic piano (2, 8, 9), Rhodes electric piano (3, 7), harmonica (4), Wurlitzer electric piano (5), keyboards (6), acoustic guitar (6, 8, 10), additional synth pads and brass pad (7), clavinet (7, 9), synthesizers (8), string arrangements (8)
