Gary Dranow and the Manic Emotions album “Destiny Road” will finally roll into the on-ramp after a 25-year delay.
And to celebrate, Dranow, a businessman, athlete and musician who lives in Pinebrook, will perform an album-release party Friday, May 12, at The Cabin, 427 Main St.
The performance will feature Andy Evens on bass, Bob Smith on drums and Jeff Lawrence on lead vocals and guitar, according to Dranow.
“We’re playing in the lodge downstairs that has a nice stage,” he said. “It’s a great venue and the people there are wonderful.”
Most of the songs on “Destiny Road” stem from the title track, which was inspired by a dream.
“In 1996, I had a dream about meeting a beautiful world traveler, whom I fall in love with, and when I woke up, I wrote the song,” he said.
When Dranow moved to Park City two years later, he met Elizabeth — the “woman of his dreams.”
“I was skiing and saw someone who was in a very bad skiing accident,” he said. “I was the first person to get to her and started doing some triage.”
When the ski patrollers arrived, they allowed Dranow to continue treating her, because he knew what to do.
“Shortly after that, I broke my neck on a mountain bike and wound up at St. Mark’s Hospital, and when I woke up from surgery, the woman from the ski slope was sitting by the side of my bed,” he said. “She visited me every day, and we started to date. And then we got married in 2003.”
Dr. Elizabeth Dranow, in addition to being a photographer, is a statistician at the University of Utah School of Medicine.
Gary Dranow considers the other 12 songs on the album, which include “Kisses,” “Something About You,” “A Girl Like Yours” and “Twisted Minds,” as chapters of “Destiny Road.” “They were all written during a condensed period between 1994 and 1996,” he said. “They are all about challenges, and life’s successes and achievements.”
One song, “Johnny Was a Driver,” is kind of an oddball track, because it wasn’t inspired by the “Destiny Road” theme, according to Dranow, whose musical influences include Jimi Hendrix, Cream-era Eric Clapton, Eric Johnson and Steve Morse.
“I wrote the song in 1974, and it’s a tongue-in-cheek tune, about a Formula One racer who cheats on his woman and bad things happen,” he said. “I enjoyed it so much that I included it on the album as a bonus song.”
The songs were recorded on Jefferson Airplane’s old 16-track machine, which was owned by producer Jerry Manfredi, who kept the tapes until he sent them to Dranow a couple of years ago.
With the tapes in hand, Dranow searched for and found an engineer, Tim Wilson, who worked with Nick Dynice at Deep Signal Studios, in Lakewood, California, known for its work with analogue reel-to-reels, who converted them into a digital format for streaming and CDs.
While all the songs Dranow writes come from his heart, one composition, “Mellow Drama,” is one of his most revealing, because it addresses his struggle with mental illness.
“I’ve been diagnosed with bipolar 1 with mania,” he said. “I did not know that until I was 45, and I really didn’t get treated for it until I was 54 and living up here in Park City.”
This song is written in the third person, and it’s about being in a relationship with Dranow.
“I have had four marriages, and my first three, because of my disorder, blew up within the first year,” he said. “So the song is very vulnerable, and I lay things wide open. And I have no issue with the song being out there, because it’s the truth.”
Dranow is looking forward to the album’s release and the release party, and not just because it’s taken a while for it to happen.
“The musicianship is top-notch,” he said. “I was at the top of my game with guitar playing when we recorded it, and I’ll have some great players with me Friday night.”
While Dranow is preparing for Friday’s gig, he is already looking toward his next album, “Never Give Up.”
“I’m well into writing those songs with my writing partner Chris Zoupa, who lives in Australia,” he said. “These songs on that album are about social things and different people.”
Dranow even wrote a song called “Golden Child,” which is about the golden doodle he and Elizabeth rescued from a shelter about a year ago.
“You would never know it was about a dog,” he said with a laugh. “We never say anything about four paws in it.”
After Friday’s performance, Dranow plans to release singles from “Never Give Up,” starting with the title track next month.
“We’ll release a new single every month until we release the album in November or December,” he said. “And I’m hoping to start doing shows at larger venues.”