Elexa Dawson - Music is Medicine during a Pandemic

Well it finally happened. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I conducted my first Tasty Brew Music Podcast conversation with a subject online via Zoom. This episode features Elexa Dawson, native of the Citizen Potawatomie Nation and amazing vocalist and songwriter. As you will hear in our conversation, Elexa was chosen as the Heartland Song Network’s Artist of the Month for August 2020 so you will hear references to that organization and a songwriting exercise they initiated called “Covid Collaborations.” I am a Co-Founder and Director of that non-profit with a mission to elevate the art of the song through education, collaboration and mentorship.

Elexa first caught my ear listening to the River Trade Radio Program on KKFI probably in early 2019. She lives with her young daughter in rural Chase County, Kansas in the beautiful Tallgrass Prairie of the Flint Hills. When she was touring the Heartland before the lockdown, I made sure to catch her shows whenever she made it to the Kansas City Area. Her latest cd, “Music is Medicine” recorded by Peter Oviatt at Moonflower Sounds in Taos, New Mexico and released by Lost Cowgirl Records is a delight; however, it turns out that work was not the first time I heard Elexa. She also performs with The Weda Skirts, a 5-piece acoustic lineup, whom I had seen performing at past Kansas City Symphony in the Flint Hills events. They play conscious, original acoustic music from the Heartland written by Elexa Dawson. Dawson is a member of Heyleon, a group that describes themselves as “taking a deep space acoustic flight where space time as we know it goes away…a Trans-Apocalyptic Pagan Gospel Super Group formed in the Pecan Grove at Walnut Valley Festival.”

At the end of the day, Elexa is an extremely talented artist living in the Flint Hills…using this time of enforced isolation to reflect, reclaim and re-invent herself. I think she’s going to be just fine and I cannot wait to see and hear what’s next. Enjoy my conversation with the amazing Elexa Dawson.