7 More To Go

I used to hate recording. Once upon a time, it seemed so damned tedious. Start, stop, start, stop...as a younger man I was far more interested in the immediacy of the live performance. As I'm getting older, I'm enjoying recording more now. I can capture a moment in time and save it forever.

I think that all recording artists have a different style of recording. My good friend and mentor, Alan Leatherwood, has a unique style of piecing his albums together. I learned a lot about recording from him! I also learned that its best to do things however one is comfortable doing them at the time.

I usually like to work really fast. Sam Phillips once explained to me that recording is all about capturing the 'right' moment. So what if there's a minor flaw in it provided you capture the energy of the moment.

This latest CD (working title "7 More To Go") of mine has by no means been a quick production! It started 3 years ago. At the time, my aussie drummer, Brian Francis, and his ladyfriend were up for a visit. He'd long mentioned that he'd never been afforded the chance to record. I set out to change that and pop his studio cherry. I booked a session at my studio of choice (Daveworld Studios out in Ambridge, PA) and we went out and laid down 16 tracks in 3 hours. Most, I thought at the time, would just be demos for myself for future reference. We didn't rehearse a single note prior to hitting the studio.

As luck would have it, we really nailed most of the songs! The more I listened to them the more I knew this could turn into a fun record! But then the dark cloud hit. My finances hit a snag, my car was stolen, I had a heart attack and was looking at a bogus assault charge! Needless to say, that slowed down the recording process!

I am, however, if nothing else, resilient. In 2008, we decided to release our "LIVE in Australia" CD and added 2 of the tracks I recorded with Brian as bonus tracks ("Rockin' In Melbourne" & "The Last Time"). Both have been received well. 2008 also found me producing AJ & The Two-Timers' debut CD. I was really starting to get the itch to record again. I had tons of ideas...but no money to finance a new project. Finally, 2010 came along and life has started to settle down again. The cash flow, at least for the foreseeable future, is steady. My health seems pretty good and I knew it was time. I called up Dave Granati at Daveworld and booked a session...in part to get it done and also to see if I could still do it! I'd pretty much given up gigging and hadn't really done much more than play guitar around the house. Dave was excited to work with me again and was really excited to get to finish these 3 year old tracks! He'd always enjoyed them. I took out a copy of the rough tracks and started making notes. There was indeed some good stuff there!

Like I said, I like to work fast. I tend to exhaust everyone who works with me so I decided to just go in and do as much by myself as possible. The session had some time constraints...due mostly to my not being able to start until late afternoon due to working the night shift. But in 4 and half hours, I knocked out 16 electric guitar parts, 10 upright bass parts, 2 electric bass parts, 12 acoustic guitar parts and one "dobro" * part! By 9:00pm, David was looking exhausted. The session was over and I was still ready for more! It appears the genie has left the bottle again!

Next up for this project are the vocal tracks....and as it's spring time and as I, like many of you, am an allergy sufferer, this might take a bit of time. In the meantime, I plan to bring my regular rhythm section (Rob Jacob & JD Dauer) in to record 2 new tracks PLUS I plan to bring my original rhythm section (Shawn Moyer & Bruce Martin) in to record an old song of mine that no one can play as well as they can!

Check back soon for more updates! It appears that rock & roll just may be becoming fun for me again!!!!!!!!





* "dobro" is technically a brand name for a type of resonator guitar made by the Dopyera Bros. Over the years, its become synonimous with acoustic, lap style playing. The cone in a "dobro" is usually what's called a spider cone, which gives a more honking tone than the standard resonators, which have a more reverby sound.