It’s been quite some time since I’ve written any good songs or at least songs that I actually like. In the last few weeks several tunes have come to mind and I’ve worked out enough of them to put together a collection of originals in the country blues fingerpicking style. This is one of the most enjoyable forms of music expression for me because the melodies and words are so simple. I’m not a big fan of complicated songs. And though I like a good story, my songs are more like poetic hints of certain states of consciousness rather than detailed accounts of events.
One good example is the song entitled: “Tree of Life”. Rather than laying out a story the song moves through a repetitive guitar ditty with one line descriptions of the way things are, as in the opening verse, “It's been a long day, walking alone and cryin'. I lost my good friend, can't be satisfied...” It’s more about expressing how things started off bad in my life, gradually getting better over time as I started going back to basics; building a home, working in the garden, standing in the sunshine, living on the tree of life, and so on.
The title song, “Gilead Valley” is a symbolic reference to a place where one can go and psychologically escape the struggles of survival in life. It is like going through a doorway into a mystical reality. The words describe “going down to Gilead Valley, going there no more to weep… where souls redeemed, their vigils keep." The idea came to me one morning when I began feeling that there was no relief from the burden of having to earn a living in our present society, and so the longing to descend into a valley became kind of a metaphor for attaining spiritual and material freedom. I think it is a common theme in the heart of most of us, to find a sacred place where there is a promise of hope and happiness in the afterlife.
Many of the songs reflect my inner feelings about the joys of simple living and seeking to follow a path of true values. It seems that these songs are more biographical in that sense. I really wanted to express these themes in a way that would paint a picture of what simplicity is really about without trying to tell it in a fictional tale.
My good friend, Joel Whitten is helping me with this recording. His “Metal Shed Studio” is a great little place where we are trying some new recording techniques in order to produce the cleanest sound possible. We are using mikes along with inline plugging this time because I want the acoustic guitar to have the kind of full tone that you can only get from live performances, but we’re separating the vocal tracks this time which is such a hard thing for me to do, especially since I am used to singing and playing at the same time. It has required that I practice playing and singing silently in my mind, recording to a click track, then going back and singing over it. I do find, however, that it makes me concentrate on singing better, really projecting my voice.
The opening song is called “Been Going Nowhere”. This is an upbeat country tune that I really enjoy singing. I intended this song originally for the Fugitive Poets to sing. I wrote the song after seeing folk singer, John Craigie a few weeks ago at Boudreaux’s & Thibodeaux’s. John played song after song, telling these remarkable stories about traveling around the country, playing coffee shops and bars for tips, and I came away feeling a little envious that I’ll never be able to have that kind of adventure and experience. So the song is about the flip side, the benefits of staying home with your woman and discovering something deeper in the long run.
I'm doing a couple of ukulele fingerpicking tunes this time as well,“Saddle Up My Pony,” and "Biscuit Roller Blues". Also some folky guitar ballads such as “People Are So Mean,” “Angels Are Calling,” and there is a wonderful instrumental tune recorded in open G tuning called “Essene Cakewalk”. I tried to do this tune with a looping track and layer 3 other guitar parts but it soon became a horrible mess. Finally i told Joel, "the hell with it, I'm going back to playing it like I do live and it came out fantastic." Simpler is always better.
The record will take a while to complete; I'd hoping to get Steve Smith to play on a couple of tunes so the possible release will be sometime early this summer. But in the meantime I’m working in a few of the numbers at some of my performances.
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