Ken Wenzel offers a Healing Heart

Dealing with Covid-19 together

Ken Francis Wenzel studied classical saxophone, graduating college with a degree in jazz studies and spent the next ten years playing sax all over the world with Frankie Avalon, Ben Vereen and Carlos Santana, among many others. Then, in 2007, he bought an acoustic guitar, and reinvented his musicianship, and in the process, himself.

Today, whether performing as a solo acoustic singer-songwriter or with his full band, Cross Kentucky, Wenzel writes and performs songs which express his search for the kinds of truth that are often best found within oneself.

Here, the title “Healing Heart” refers to our dream that someone or something will swoop in and cure COVID-19 quickly and make it all go away, but it also speaks to how we, as a country, are stepping up and helping others to get one another through this pandemic.

Wenzel told Elmore, “I wrote this song on a Sunday night in early May, deep in the middle of quarantine. At that time, we had yet to hear any whispers of re-opening the country, and we were all left with our own thoughts on how to get through it. As is often the case, the melody and repeating theme of ‘Healing Heart’ came to me that morning. I wrote down a skeleton framework, chewed on it through the afternoon, and fleshed it out and finished it that night. Covid was already political by then, and I wanted to describe common themes that we all as people were dealing with: isolation, uncertainty, fear, worries about getting sick, getting our loved ones sick, wanting to ‘do something’ but not knowing what, financial pressure, depression, all of it. At that time, there was no light at the end of the tunnel, and I wanted to try to shine a light somewhere. Anywhere, really. With protests sweeping the country and the globe, right now we need justice. But at some point, the time will come to begin to heal, and it’s my hope that this song speaks to that. We all could use a Healing Heart.”