Coping with Covid can be tough on people’s mental health. But music helped local classic rock inspired musician Don Cassell get through it with a little bit of help from his friends. The result— the first Dark Wrangler CD ‘Liminality’ “ This album saved me,” said Cassell, who started working on a few of his songs with with Taylor Ackerman in January. Ackerman, along with Ryan, ‘Skinny’ Dyck and multi-instrumentalist Tyler Bird helped flesh out his songs.
“They play everything on the CD — bass, drums, fiddle, keyboards,” he said.
The songs range from classic rock style to heartbroken country music.
He added bassist Dil Jopp and Danica Somme to sing background vocals.
“She’s got an amazing voice so I asked Taylor to bring her (Sommer’s) vocals up, so they are a prominent part of the second track ‘Light of Day.’
Cassell has also released one album with his other band In Cahoots and two with The Juxtaposers, a project which also included Ackerman and Bird.
“ We just got together and started jamming together on some of my songs. I realized we had something special, but I never thought it would turn out to be a CD,” he said, adding he met with Ackerman weekly in his North side studio, and came up with a song a week, which they eventually fleshed out for the CD.