Dennis McGregor releases solo CD

Dennis McGregor. photo provided Dennis McGregor is known for his Sisters event posters and as a member of the band The Blue D'Arts.

In recent years, he has become a prolific and successful songwriter -- and he just released his first collection of original material.

During the Sisters Folk Festival he announced the release of his first solo CD "Most People Are Good."

McGregor dedicated his creation to his father, "who taught me that most people are good."

McGregor wrote his first song when he was 15. Over the years he occasionally wrote something -- just because it was something he liked to do.

He has played in a couple of bands, including a successful stint with the nationally recognized Natty Bumpo back in the 1970s. But it's only recently that he has started taking songwriting seriously and has gotten passionate about it. A key turning point was attending the first songwriting camp conducted by the Sisters Folk Festival.

He remembers, "I was kinda skeptical but I went to help (organizer) Brad Tisdel out. I'm not sure how it happened, but when I returned home I found myself writing songs."

The following year he went again and was encouraged to enter the Sisters Folk Festival Songwriting Contest. He said, "I have mixed feelings about competitions anyway -- how can one thing be better than another? And I said, 'Ah, what the heck, I'll do it.' So, I entered it. And then I won the contest. And I thought, okay, I'm done."

Then people started asking him, "Well, what are you going to do now?"

"What do you mean, what am I going to do now? I have to do something?"

So, one thing led to another.

McGregor related, "A good friend, Kate MacKenzie, has made CDs herself, toured and made her living doing that in that world. She's retired from the music business and lives in Sunriver now. We've become good buds and we get together and play just for the fun of it. She's watched my songs and has always been supportive."

One day MacKenzie said, "You need to make a CD, a solo CD." She kept on him about it.

Finally she said, "Are you going to be able to pass the rocking chair test?"

"What's that?" he asked.

"When you're too old to do anything else and you're sitting in a rocking chair thinking about your life, what are you going to regret that you didn't do?"

McGregor recalls, "That kind of resonated with me because deep down, when you write a bunch of songs they're just in the cosmos until they get recorded. So that's why I just went ahead and did it.

"It was a great experience. I liked it. Like anything you do, you think, 'If I could do that again, I could do it better.' So now I'm thinking about the next one."

The title track reflects a personal vision of community that McGregor has developed since moving to Sisters.

Moving with his family from California in 1989, McGregor recalls, "Everything fell into place. I started learning about being a community member.

"In addition to all the beautiful scenery, air, and water that drew us here, the thing that is ultimately the greatest is the people."

McGregor says, "Part of the sweetness of this CD title is realizing that even if others have totally different beliefs about how the world was created, or whatever, I still think they're good.

"We all want the same stuff, which is to live in peace, experience love, and not have people take our rights away."

McGregor's CD is available at Paulina Springs Books and High Desert Gallery.