Jack Schneider, Americana singer-songwriter and rhythm guitar player for Vince Gill, shares a message of hopeful reflection on "Don't Look Down," from debut album Best Be On My Way (out Nov. 11).
Videos by Wide Open Country
"'Don't Look Down' was written on a stormy night in Nashville sometime in the summer of 2021. It showed up fortuitously, a simple piece reflecting on the nature of the previous year: the turbulence, the chaos, the world feeling like it was tearing at the seams," Schneider tells Wide Open Country. "The song emerged as a glimmer of hope, a reminder of the ground beneath my feet, the simultaneous wariness of -- and trust in -- forward motion.
Schneider, who collaborated with longtime heroes -- including Gill and David Rawlings -- on the album, says the song was nearly left off the album entirely until Rawlings rescued it from the cutting room floor.
"When I began recording the album, 'Don't Look Down' was tucked away in the back of my mind, abandoned but not forgotten," Schneider says. "Following the first full day of tracking with a band of heroes -- Vince Gill, David Rawlings, Stuart Duncan and Dennis Crouch -- I found myself back in Sound Emporium's Studio B to shoot some photographs and video content for the half-formed record's eventual release. On a whim, I had recording engineer Mike Stankiewicz set up the tape machine and one mic, a vintage Neumann U67. I pulled out a borrowed guitar, a 1951 Martin 000-18, and set foot in front of the mic, and that ephemeral tune came to me once again. Liv Greene, an old and dear companion I met at Interlochen summer camp as a teenager, was there for video filming, and I invited her to join in on the banjo. We played the song once for camera. It was an imperfect take: I got some of the words wrong, my voice was still learning the cadence, my fingers still finding their way around the melody. But the essence of the song was intact. The journey was in motion, and the feeling was overwhelming.
Months later, when mixing the record, I was narrowing down songs with David Rawlings. 'Don't Look Down' was on the cutting room floor up until that point, but Rawlings came to its rescue. At his advice, I included it on the record, and it has since come to function as a pivotal point of reflection both in live shows and in the musical narrative of the record itself."
Watch the video for "Don't Look Down" below.
Born in New York and raised in Georgia, Schneider befriended Gill while working at Nashville's Gruhn Guitars while on break from NYU's Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music. Schneider began working as a session player in both New York and Nashville, becoming a sought-after collaborator and producer.
