“Somebody once said I was the People’s Champion. I like that.” Citizen Cope

Memphis-born, DC-raised, and now Brooklyn-based, Greenwood’s musical journey began in the mid-1990s, when he first drew local acclaim for both his intimate songwriting and unique sonic fusion. His official debut album, Citizen Cope, was released in 2002, while The Clarence Greenwood Recordings followed two years later. The road to The Rainwater LP also included guest appearances on blockbuster albums by Santana and Dido, while Citizen Cope songs such as “Let The Drummer Kick” and “Bullet And A Target” have been featured in a wide array of films, television series, and advertisements. But Greenwood doesn’t like to compartmentalize his work, preferring to see each effort as but one aspect of his overall oeuvre.

The latest stop on the Citizen Cope trail was recorded over the course of 2009 at both Brooklyn Recording in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn and The Document Room in Malibu, with extensive periods of touring in between sessions. Like the last two records, Greenwood produced The Rainwater LP himself. Among the musicians accompanying him this time were such studio stars as bassist Preston Crump (OutKast, Organized Noize, Raphael Saadiq), keyboardist James Poyser (D’Angelo, The Roots, Jill Scott, John Legend), percussionist Bashiri Johnson (Whitney Houston, Donald Fagen, Madonna), legendary go-go bassist Michael “Funky Ned” Neal and top DC-scene go-go drummer Paul “Buggy” Edwards.

It was longer than I’d expected between records,” Cope says, “but it was like a culmination of all the records getting into peoples’ psyche. I just kept on touring, doing songs from all three records, and then I started getting ideas for songs. I got inspired to make another album and put it out myself.”

Since making his official debut, Cope had released three fine albums on three different labels, an experience which proved frustrating, to say the very least. Having been through the industry mill, this time Greenwood was determined to take the bull by the horns and release the album himself.

A lot of labels wanted to put it out,” he explains, “but I kept hearing things like ‘Retail’s gonna need you to do this’ or ‘The artwork has to be like this.’ I don’t want to be led into those confines anymore. I want to be able to do it my own way. Being able to operate efficiently, not having to move buildings to do anything, just seems so basic for any artistic endeavor.”