This album is almost ready!
Had a second recording session at Leilani Sound Studios. Overdubbed backing vocals and additional instruments for three of the tunes.
Fabulous Guest Musicians!
Two of these songs were blessed with the talents of a couple of friends of mine who happen to be fantastic musicians: folk troubadour Rik Palieri and Burlington songwriter Janice Russotti.
“We Don’t Know Any Better”
On this song Rik played his banjo ukulele, kazoo and joined the backing vocals as well. Rik said “This is the first time I have ever made a recording with the banjo uke!” He really gave it his all, and the kazoo work was equally memorable.
Janice added a clever, subtle harmony to the chorus and it really completes the song. We had a lot of fun recording this.
“Let’s Fight The Sun”
This song was inspired by a passing Facebook comment about plans by MIT, Bill Gates, and others to work together to solve the problem of climate change by figuring out a way to block the sun.
Janice played Rik’s old tambourine on this track, and it broke apart! You can hear this instruments’ last performance on this track.
I was going to add a ukulele to the track, but Rik offered to play banjo! The results sound great to me, way better than the uke would have.
Janice, Rik and I formed a chorus for the backing vocals, and it all worked out even better than I had imagined.
Waiting on the mix…
So the final mixdown was delayed due to the engineer becoming ill, but I have word the mix is imminent, so I am hoping in just a few days I can announce the official release of Common Man Blues.
Speaking of the title track…
“Common Man Blues” also got another overdub (in addition to the vocals and harmonica). Rik lent me a resonator guitar, and I have been practicing my Open G tuning. Didn’t get to show off much here, just added for some atmosphere really, but it works well for the song.
This song exists because of another great musician and his contribution to the early development of this work. Legendary Jazz pianist and composer David Amram was gracious enough to work on this song with me, as part of his interest in re-thinking and re-visiting the 12-bar blues form.
SongwriterTribe 