Story Behind the Songs
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I recently had the fortunate opportunity to work with producer, Tom Wasinger. He’s such a brilliant producer and musician and has won three Grammy’s. He’s also right here in Boulder, CO with a recording studio on Sugar Loaf Mountain. Doesn’t that sound like a mystical land where only good things can happen? I’m not sure how I got in the same room with him, but wooohooo, was it ever fun playing in his sandbox. I learned a lot from him, and I also played slide guitar on 3 of the tracks, which was a great experience. Here’s what we recorded:
It Hurts Me Too is one of my favorite great blues standards. It was first recorded by Tampa Red in 1940, but the Elmore James version from 1963 featuring slide guitar became a hit. Countless blues musicians from Junior Wells to Eric Clapton, The Rolling Stones, and Little Milton have made this song their own in one way or another. So I couldn’t resist making it my own too, since I’ve listened to this song literally hundreds of times. Listen to track…
You Don’t Miss Your Water is a soul/blues song written by William Bell in 1961. I went through a “phase”of listening to this song obsessively and knew I had to sing it. It’s soooo soulful and desperate. Candy for blues singers. Listen to track…
Walking Blues – When I think of Delta Blues, the first song that comes to mind is Walking Blues. It was written and recorded by Son House in 1930. Robert Johnson recorded it in 1936, and many musicians followed – even Cee Lo Green does a killer old school version. Anyway, we wanted to stay true to that unpolished sound, and we had a great time experimenting. Tom used a big wooden bowl full of river rocks for the percussion, along with an unusual instrument that is the equivalent of wooden spoons clicking in the background. I played Tom’s National steel guitar, and the “bass” was a creative use of the closet in his studio. The entire closet became an instrument by attaching bass strings to the outside and plucking at different intervals to get that big bass sound. The low C shook the whole room! Listen to track…
The last song, Walk Away, is an original. More of those to come soon!
