A Conversation with Mac McAnally on Jesse Winchester – HuffPost 9.3.14

Mike Ragogna: Mac, let’s talk about Jesse Winchester. You produced his album A Reasonable Amount Of Trouble that are his final recordings. How did you get through it? It must have hit you in a much different way than producing any other album in your life.

Mac McAnally: Well, certainly. The whole premise initially was that Jesse had been sick, we did the tribute album during the time that he was sick, and right before we began this final project he was actually given a clean bill of health. The prognosis at that point was good, but he had these songs that were written during the feeling of imminent death. There was sort of a heavy overtone to the songs he had written. He was concerned because he was generally not a heavy, morose guy; he always had a sense of humor about everything. If you know his work, you know there’s always some pathos and always some humor and always some real life in any Jesse Winchester song. That’s why he’s one of my heroes. He can make you laugh and cry in the same song.