The Park City, UT-based blues and classic rock inspired band, Gary Dranow and the Manic Emotions, have finally released their much anticipated debut album, Destiny Road. This intimate 14 song album is 20 years in the making. With his music deeply reflecting his life, Gary’s unwavering dedication to his craft is a source of inspiration to fans and aspiring artists alike.
Gary struck the peak of his musical creativity in the mid 90’s, at the height of his dealing with his bi-polar 1 disorder and mania. In 1996 he, with the help of Jerry Manfredi, wrote and produced the songs that are now the album, Destiny Road.
He poured his heart and soul into the creation of the album, an autobiographical and deeply personal musical journey that chronicles his struggles, triumphs, and everything in between. The album was intended to be released in the summer of 1998. It was even recorded on Jefferson Airplane’s old 2″ 16 Track machine which was owned by his producer Jerry Manfredi.
Then, in 1998, Dranow abruptly moved to Park City, Utah leaving his music and six rolls of Ampex tapes behind with Jerry.
Today, Gary has reformed The Manic Emotions with Andy Evens on Bass, the incredible Bob Smith on Drums, and now Jeff Lawrence as the lead vocalist and on Guitar. As the story goes, Jerry Manfredi, seemingly out of the blue, shipped Gary the 70-pound box of 16 track tapes that Jerry had stored for over twenty years.
Now with Destiny Road back in his hands, Gary needed help getting the tracks into the modern day. He was able to find an engineer, Tim Wilson, who located a studio in Lakewood, California that specialized in recovering analogue tracks from old reel-to-reel tapes, this was Deep Signal Studios. Gary shipped the tapes back to California where Nick at Deep Signal “Baked” the tapes and pulled all the Stem tracks off into digital format and after a month Dranow got back all his work from two decades earlier.
Tim got to work mixing and mastering each song and in late 2021 the Destiny Road Album was ready for release.
Dranow’s work is influenced by the stylings of musical legends such as Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughn which shines through in his music. The outfit Gary Dranow and The Manic Emotions are sending their own, unique ripples through the Blues and Rock music scenes respectively with an eclectic and passionate set of songs.
Connect with Gary Dranow and the Manic Emotions
Website // Instagram // Facebook // YouTube // Spotify // Soundcloud
