Ginger Winn: Ex-Pastry Chef Cooks Up Sweet-Sounding Debut Disc in the Hudson Valley

The Hudson Valley has an abundance of natural resources. One of these is an outsized wealth of world-class recording studios – legendary sonic fortresses helmed by some of music’s most inventive and successful producers.

When it came time for 24-year-old singer-songwriter Ginger Winn to cut her debut album, Stop-Motion, she headed to Boiceville to work with producer David Baron at Sun Mountain Studios.  Baron is a second-generation industry veteran, the son of Aaron Baron, a remote recording engineer whose credits include The Allman Brothers’ Live at the Fillmore East and B.B. King: Live in Cook County Jail.  The younger Baron is the multi-instrumentalist/producer/engineer who has worked with well-known artists such as Shania Twain, Shawn Mendes, Lenny Kravitz, The Lumineers (including all solo projects of partners Wesley Schultz and Jeremiah Fraites), Hudson Valley local Donna Lewis and many, many more.

And the way Winn and Baron came to partner up… well, that is the stuff of legend.

Winn is a native South Carolinian who left school at 16 to pursue her musical dreams. To make ends meet, she worked as a pastry chef while honing her songwriting and production skills via online courses and collaborative forums. Through the latter, she met a fellow musician and traveled to visit him in South Africa – a short vacation that became a wild, two-year adventure.

As she had no work visa, Winn had to be creative to make a living in Cape Town. She turned to freelancing online, producing jingles for businesses and brands worldwide. She also turned lyrics and poems sent in to celebrate anniversaries and birthdays into fully fleshed-out songs.

Through the latter, she met and collaborated with Matthew and Tina Baione. Tina wanted to turn one of her husband’s poems into a song as an anniversary gift, so Ginger got the job. The Baiones were so enthused by the results that they kept going—Matthew provided the lyrics, and Ginger wrote and produced the music for more than two dozen songs. After hearing the first song, the Baiones asked Ginger if she wanted to collaborate on an album, and the answer was “yes.”

Ginger, the Baiones, and Baron spent the month of March crafting Winn’s atmospheric and soulful debut disc. Four out of five of the album’s recently released singles were shot in Woodstock, with local talent (the fifth debuted at the Lower East Side outpost of Woodstock’s Early Terrible).

“Ginger was a real mystery to me until we met and got to work in my recording studio,” observes Baron.  “So many musicians have so much, maybe too much, music online. But Ginger turned out to be a super talented and very open-minded artist with something to say.”

Read on to hear more about Ginger’s incredible discovery story…

INSIDE+OUT: When did you first get interested in music, and who were your early inspirations?

Ginger Winn: Music was always in my life. I got started when my dad, who is part Hawaiian, bought me a ukulele when I was an infant. I banged around on that a lot as a kid. When I was nine, my mom began to formally teach me guitar. My parents, siblings, and cousins all played and sang. As for inspiration, I was especially drawn to Mazzy Star’s “Fade Into You.” It has a dreamy atmosphere that filters into much of the music I make, like the album’s first single, “Super 8.” I also loved Fleetwood Mac, Queen, and Ed Sheeran and really respected Taylor Swift as a songwriter. When I was young, I was also immersed in country music. My mom had a six-CD changer in her car that was pretty much just filled with classic country songs.

When did you begin writing songs and what’s your process?

My mom was my biggest influence. She had been involved in the music business before I was born, and we started writing songs together when I was 11. We did that for 10 years and recorded a new album annually. We won a couple of songwriting contests, and in 2013, one of the prizes was for a time in a recording studio, which catapulted my recording career. In 2016, we recorded at the legendary FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals. Four years ago, when I was 20, I started doing it on my own. I took some online courses and really got into both songwriting and home recording.

Your time as a pastry chef is the narrative of your single, “Frosting.” Tell us about that time and its role in helping you achieve your dreams.

I dropped out of high school at 16 to go “all in” on music. I knew this was the life I wanted to live, and I started playing in bands in my native South Carolina State when I was about 14.  One of them, Pondering Wade, was an Afro-Celtic band with instruments like an Irish bouzouki. It was named Pondering Wade because two of the women in the band before me were both obsessed with different guys named Wade!  Around this time, I got a job at Baker’s Sweets Bistro & Bakery. I worked my way up from waitress to head pastry chef. I made all the cakes, cupcakes, and brownies, but my specialty was decorating cakes. That’s something that is immortalized on my debut cover and in the video for “Frosting,” which was shot at Early Terrible in Woodstock. The bakery’s owner, Jennifer Baker, was a real inspiration to me. She built a business with several successful locations by having a vision, taking risks, and working hard. Funnily, my younger brother also started as a waiter and worked his way up to the head of the kitchen, and he still works there today.

Your connection to your label, Keep Good Company Records, and its founder, your writing partner, Matthew Baione, is a pretty unbelievable story. How did you folks come to meet, and how has this partnership shaped the album?

Well, that goes back to my recent relationship. Over the past few years, I have been taking music courses and collaborating with other musicians worldwide via the Internet.  Through this, I met a musician in South Africa, and after a year of talking and collaborating, I decided to visit him in Cape Town. I stumbled onto this online freelancing website, Upwork. My first jobs were filming TikToks and editing audio and podcasts.  In time, I began getting a lot of jobs in music production – creating songs for advertising for insurance companies, high-end retailers, and personal occasions like birthdays and anniversaries. Clients would send me lyrics, and I would turn them into fully-produced songs. I loved it!

One day, I saw a job posting from Matthew’s wife, Tina, who wanted to turn her husband’s poems into songs.  Crazily, her reference song for her assignment was “Fade Into You,” my favorite tune and a style I had worked in for the last ten years! I did two songs at first, one of them being “Super 8,” the first single from my album. Tina and Matthew were one of maybe 15 clients I was doing music production for at that point.

They kept sending me poems, and I continued to make songs for them. After a while, they asked me if I wanted to turn them into an album. Of course, I said “yes,” but I honestly didn’t think much of it.

So, this is when our local superstar producer David Baron comes into the picture?

Matthew and Tina had been listening to Brightside, the most recent album by The Lumineers, which was produced by David. They thought he would be the ideal producer to capture my sound. Matthew emailed David and put the word “Grahamsville” in the subject line because that’s where Tina’s grandfather lived. It just so happens that David was in Grahamsville when the email came through and answered it because he thought it had something to do with his trip there. Matthew is an attorney, so I assume he wrote a pretty convincing message! David listened to some of the demos and agreed to meet to discuss it. It all became a reality when they flew me to New York, and we met in person for the first time in March.

The album production was a real whirlwind experience. Tell us about it.

We made the album in 18 days at David’s Sun Mountain Studios in Boiceville. We all stayed at a Comeback Stays house rental on the Esopus Creek in Mount Tremper for about three weeks while it was happening.  We had pretty sophisticated demos of all the songs, but David did his magic with them. He also brought in some renowned session musicians, including bassist Jeff Hill, guitarist Jack Petruzzelli, the incredible drummer Renee Hikari, and acclaimed jazz trumpeter Chris Pasin, who played with greats like Frank Sinatra. David’s son Oskar even added some violin. Interestingly, we kept some bits from my demos, like the drum loop on “Averna.”

Your debut album is a scant 27 minutes long—very old school! Do you think many of today’s artists overstay their welcome with 70-plus-minute albums?

We wanted to make an album like Brightside that is meant to be listened to straight through and sound like one cohesive body of work – not just a collection of songs. The album cover has a carousel on it, and the idea is for this album to feel exactly like that – a carousel ride. David was able to perfectly synthesize all the diverse sounds into still sounding like one piece. We cut 20, maybe more demos at my home studio, and probably have two albums’ worth of demos waiting for the future, and we can’t seem to stop making more…

Tell us about some of the songs and the process of working with Matthew.

The lyrics of this first album are all from Matthew. In some cases, I may work to edit them to make them fit the musical form, but the concepts and the vast majority of the words come from him, and then we work through them together for a shared vision.  Our first collaboration, “Super 8,” recounts Matthew and Tina’s relationship, a love song about finally getting the person you desire.  “Averna” is another beautiful and unique love song, while “Pitta Patta” is about getting into nature, getting lost, and being out of the woods.  People love “Nightmares Are Free, but Dreams Are Sold.” It’s very abstract yet stripped back, just my voice and guitar recorded live in David’s live room. Matthew is an attorney who has worked with many 9/11 victims. The song “8:48” is about a couple who fight at breakfast on that tragic day. One of them loses their life in the attack, and the other lives with the regret of having their last conversation being an angry one.

You and your team have put together some great videos to promote the songs, some of which were filmed right here in the Hudson Valley.

Yes, we worked with local filmmakers and locations. Our directors/videographers, Brooklyn Zeh and Mikala Gallo, are Hudson Valley-based. All four of the videos, “Super 8, Pitta Patta, Off-Course,” and “Frosting,” were filmed at least partially at Early Terrible in Woodstock.  “Off-Course” features some locals playing fairies at Early Terrible and at Byrdcliffe, America’s first artists’ colony. For “Frosting,” the crew created a bakery set in a shed behind Early Terrible. In it, you see me frosting the image that became the album cover and David writing the title and his name with studio tape and marker. I also have to give a big thanks to the Woodstock Way Hotel.  We had the honor of filming the first-ever “Waterfall Sessions” concert series right by the waterfall on this beautiful property and with the local musician who played on the album. Our most recent video, “Breaking News,” is the first video so far that wasn’t filmed at Early Terrible – it was filmed in the Lower East Side of Manhattan…but Early Terrible just opened up an NYC outpost in the neighborhood, so we had no choice but to debut it on a stack of vintage TVs in their window on Broome Street.

Now that you’ve finished the album, you’re about to set off on a tour.

Yes, it’s my first big tour, 14 dates on the West Coast opening for the Gypsy Kings with a solo acoustic set. I plan to play most of the album, plus some fun covers to please the crowd. When I was 12, I would sing a few songs at my uncle’s music venue, Awendaw Green, outside of Charleston. We debuted the album with a gorgeous concert featuring a full band, including Jack Petruzzelli, Jeff Hill, Will Bryant, Dave Burnett, and Chris Pasin, in front of the waterfall at the Woodstock Way Hotel. It was the first full concert within that space. Pete Caigan of Utopia Studios recorded, mixed, and mastered the music for inclusion in a concert film we submitted to the Woodstock Film Festival along with a mini-documentary piece. At some point, we will release the live album.

Besides the Woodstock Way “Waterfall Session,” I’ve also performed the album at Rockwood Music Hall in the city, Rough Draft in Kingston, and as part of a 2-hour set at The Pines in Mount Tremper, I did in July, which was a great way to prepare for the tour. The Rough Draft and The Pines shows were extra special because David came to watch the performance.

So, what happens after the tour? Will we be seeing more of you in Hudson Valley?

Absolutely. As soon as the tour is over, I am going to head back to South Carolina for a little rest and to reconnect with my family. Then, I plan to move to New York City. That way, I can make the Hudson Valley the place where I will continue my recording career and get lost in the woods! The relationships and creative partnerships I’ve made here are forever, and I know I’m only scratching the surface. It is an amazing place that will forever be a part of my life. I’ll perform at the Heart of Midtown: Go All in For Mental Health Street Festival on September 7 and the Hudson Valley Sustainable Fashion Week Runway Show on September 27. I already have a recording session booked for that month.

Contributing writer Sal Cataldi is a musician, writer and former publicist living in Saugerties NY.

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Follow/Connect with Ginger Winn via Website | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube | Spotify | TikTok

Keep Good Company Records  @keepgoodcompanyrecords

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