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This tune was conceived originally on a trip to New York City I took with my girlfriend of the time. We went to visit my friend Bill and his family in Jefferson Valley NY, around Christmas of 1989, and we took the train from Ossinig to Grand Central Station. As we traveled into the city, we passed by people sitting outside their tenements, living their lives with everything from fierce pride, to simple dignity, to desperation. The song just floated to me on that cold December wind.
This recording actually began in 2005. I attended The Swannanoa Gathering for the first time. The Gathering is a folk arts camp that goes on every summer at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, NC. This first year, I took a class called “Accompanying Others”, essentially how to play along with other players without stepping on them; with Pete Huttlinger as the instructor. I walked in a couple of minutes late the first day, and Pete properly initiated me; putting me on the hot seat to come up and sing a song. Well, being an instrumental jazz artist, and being one for whom guitar was not in any way my strong suit, I was very nervous. I didn’t have a large book of tunes from which to draw, so I decided to sing Jim Croce’s “I’ll Have To Say I Love You In A Song”. Lacking the presence of mind to introduce the song, I just started playing. Well, before I’d played three beats, Pete named the tune aloud, and right on cue, Pete came in with Maury Muehleisen’s beautiful 2nd guitar part, only ornamenting it to a delicate beauty I’d never before heard. I sang the song to the best of my limited abilities; all the while with this inner monologue running in my head:
“Wow, I’m playing this and singing… Um, there’s a world class guitarist sitting to my left, and he’s playing with me… he’s not laughing… hmm... he seems like he’s having fun!!!... I’m gonna cry…”
Anyway, that night, he closed the faculty concert with his rendition of Steve Wonder’s “Superstition”: here is a video of him performing it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRamobGYBCE
By lunchtime the next day, I’d hired him to work on two tunes I’d developed and started recordings for, this and “Abby”. I didn’t work WITH Pete on the recording in the traditional sense, in that we collaborated over the internet. I send him an MP3 of each tune he worked on, and he brought it into his ProTools rig, recorded his parts, and shipped them back to me for mixing. To give you an idea of what kind of guy Pete is; I hired him just for guitar soloing. On Brownstone, he did the solo I asked for, but also added a harmony part to the solo, and not one but TWO rhythm guitar parts. You hear them in the song hard panned down the left and right channels. They both set up and accentuate the inexorable, desolate groove of the tune. I was just along for the ride. Thank you Pete; I’ll never forget your generosity of spirit, and your INCREDIBLE guitar talents.
By the way, this is only one of two songs on the CD that I felt good enough to play the melody on, a bass melody is sorta cool... :)
This recording actually began in 2005. I attended The Swannanoa Gathering for the first time. The Gathering is a folk arts camp that goes on every summer at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, NC. This first year, I took a class called “Accompanying Others”, essentially how to play along with other players without stepping on them; with Pete Huttlinger as the instructor. I walked in a couple of minutes late the first day, and Pete properly initiated me; putting me on the hot seat to come up and sing a song. Well, being an instrumental jazz artist, and being one for whom guitar was not in any way my strong suit, I was very nervous. I didn’t have a large book of tunes from which to draw, so I decided to sing Jim Croce’s “I’ll Have To Say I Love You In A Song”. Lacking the presence of mind to introduce the song, I just started playing. Well, before I’d played three beats, Pete named the tune aloud, and right on cue, Pete came in with Maury Muehleisen’s beautiful 2nd guitar part, only ornamenting it to a delicate beauty I’d never before heard. I sang the song to the best of my limited abilities; all the while with this inner monologue running in my head:
“Wow, I’m playing this and singing… Um, there’s a world class guitarist sitting to my left, and he’s playing with me… he’s not laughing… hmm... he seems like he’s having fun!!!... I’m gonna cry…”
Anyway, that night, he closed the faculty concert with his rendition of Steve Wonder’s “Superstition”: here is a video of him performing it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRamobGYBCE
By lunchtime the next day, I’d hired him to work on two tunes I’d developed and started recordings for, this and “Abby”. I didn’t work WITH Pete on the recording in the traditional sense, in that we collaborated over the internet. I send him an MP3 of each tune he worked on, and he brought it into his ProTools rig, recorded his parts, and shipped them back to me for mixing. To give you an idea of what kind of guy Pete is; I hired him just for guitar soloing. On Brownstone, he did the solo I asked for, but also added a harmony part to the solo, and not one but TWO rhythm guitar parts. You hear them in the song hard panned down the left and right channels. They both set up and accentuate the inexorable, desolate groove of the tune. I was just along for the ride. Thank you Pete; I’ll never forget your generosity of spirit, and your INCREDIBLE guitar talents.
By the way, this is only one of two songs on the CD that I felt good enough to play the melody on, a bass melody is sorta cool... :)
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Soundhound
Has a real nice feel to it, brings back memories at the Village Gate in
NYC... A few bands came through with this kind of style that was the groove then, this is well done love the " Bass Solo " and the Harmonized Guitar Solos!!!...That you don't hear much of today, well
maybe in a different way......
Well done...