Tales of Wonderland, Four Years on: The Taproots and a First Album Built on Found Wisdom
A Bumper Sticker, a Stranger on a Plane and a Cheap Ukulele Shaped These Songs
The Taproots did not make Tales of Wonderland, their first album, in one go. Tom Walters and Nicole Cassingham cut four songs at Jay Ferguson’s studio, The Green Orb, in Santa Barbara, with drummer Michael C. Mason co-producing. Only after those sessions did the duo widen the project at Momboe Productions in Woodland Hills, where Ross Pallone engineered and mixed the rest.
The Taproots’ music is in the playlist below, and every article about the duo is gathered on the Taproots profile. Tales of Wonderland reached BestRock.News through PopHits.Co Music Charts, which verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news titles. Start it playing, then read on for where its hooks came from.
The duo self-released the result, Tales of Wonderland, on 1 July 2022: fourteen songs and about 53 minutes of Americana, alt-country and classic rock. Four years on, the debut is worth another listen. The hooks on Tales of Wonderland were not chased. Several of them were found.
For example, take Belief. Its chorus line, “Don’t believe everything you think”, came from a bumper sticker on an old Toyota. Walters says so in the note beside the lyric on the band’s website. Likewise, Compass began the same way. Its refrain, “Let your heart be your compass”, is advice from an elderly woman on a flight 30,000 feet above Colorado.
As a result, the record has a steady, modest centre. Those choruses sound like things people actually say, because they are. Then there is Wild Like a River, a song about working back towards simplicity. Walters wrote it on a cheap ukulele after a stay on Kauai. Even Big Fat Love rests on a plain phrase. It is a cynic admitting that a new love has knocked his walls down.
California Myths, a Dutch City and a US Airport Give Tales of Wonderland Its Places
The lyrics work by pinning feelings to real places. Its writer calls California Life, the opener, a wink at the myth and mystique of the state. It is also an homage to relatives who grew up in Los Angeles. A grandfather lives near Wilshire and Vine and rides the old red car line. A father sails out of San Pedro on Friday nights.
Haarlem, by contrast, travels further. It is a transatlantic love song inspired by a stay in the Dutch city. Autumn leaves and rain on cobblestones sit against a narrator awake in Los Angeles at four in the morning. Ontario flips the direction. A Canadian waits for a red-eye flight in a US airport while screens, drones and phones crowd the scene. Meanwhile, Better Man sketches a friend with a poor eye for partners through a list of names.
Walters has named Joni Mitchell and Paul Simon among his favourite writers, poets whose music kept changing. In fact, the influence shows. Mitchell wrote California for Blue in 1971 as a letter home from Europe. Haarlem, in turn, runs the same emotional route in reverse. Simon built Graceland around a drive to Memphis, which is how Compass uses that plane ride.
Reviewers picked up on the same qualities when the record came out. Obscure Sound singled out the dual vocals on Wild Like a River. It also heard a throwback rock lift in Big Fat Love.
BestRock.News’s curator team: “Tales of Wonderland is a reminder that a hook does not have to be invented to work. Some of the best lines on this record were overheard, and The Taproots had the sense to write them down.”
Fourteen Arrangements, Session Players and Two Voices at the Centre of Tales of Wonderland
The structure of the album comes from its credits as much as its songs. Every song was written by Tom Walters, and the two singers share the lead lines and harmonies throughout. Around them, however, the arrangements change from track to track. Nicole Cassingham plays ukulele on several songs, including California Life, Wild Like a River and Fate of Fire. Meanwhile, Walters adds acoustic guitar and mandolin.
The session players bring serious history, as Illustrate Magazine set out in its 2022 interview with the duo. Grammy-winning guitarist Clif Magness plays electric guitar on the songs Jay Ferguson co-produced and mixed. Those include Ontario, My Sunlight and Fate of Fire. Ferguson himself was formerly of Spirit and Jo Jo Gunne. Bassist Steve Nelson, known for his work with Michael McDonald and Jim Messina, plays on much of the record. Pat Benatar’s bassist Mick Mahan plays on others. Jon Woodhead, who has played with Leon Russell and Maria Muldaur, handles electric guitars. Michael Hopkins adds steel guitar to Compass and Belief. Kiki Ebsen sings backing vocals on Big Fat Love and Haarlem.
That cast could easily have buried a small duo, but the arrangements stay in service of the two voices. Compass adds strings and steel guitar to a song built on acoustic guitar and piano without crowding the story. Fate of Fire, the closer, pairs Cassingham’s ukulele with Magness’s electric guitars. Across the running order, the band move between quieter folk arrangements and fuller classic rock ones. The shifts feel planned rather than random.
Where to Hear Tales of Wonderland and Follow The Taproots Now
Since then, the debut has gained company. In 2026 the duo followed it with Comedy of Fools, available on Spotify. It carries the same harmonies into new stories. So listeners who come to that record first should go back to the debut to hear where the method started. Rockera Magazine called the debut polished when it arrived, and it still holds up.
For anyone who likes Americana with clear storytelling and grown-up harmonies, Tales of Wonderland is an easy album to recommend. Stream it on Apple Music, and read the songwriter’s notes on the band’s official site.
Follow The Taproots across platforms: Spotify, Apple Music, SoundCloud, YouTube channel and Instagram.
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