This facebook post became blogworthy because of comments by friends . . . .
My initial post:
What is it with blues songs that open with, "Well I woke up this mornin', sun was startin' to rise ...."
When I feel blue, I wake up in the evening, maaaybe the afternoon.
Morning is for SLEEPING after you're up all night worrying about the way things might have been, or up all night doing the music thing ~~ playing or writing or blogging or imagining new riffs or rhymes or rhythms.
So I just might rewrite some of those songs to say, "Well I woke up this evenin', sun was sinkin' away ...."
Josy and I, two seeds of the gestating Burnt Sugar Blues, visited the open house at the Farmhouse at Hickory Highlands on Sunday, May 22, 2016. The gorgeous afternoon highlighted treasures of the house that John Freeberg and Susan Walch grew atop a prairie hill over the course of five years.
While there, we communed with the cows and calf, and checked in with the chickens. This little red hen contented herself in my arms ~~ she even snoozed a bit ~~ until she politely excused herself to freshen up without squirting my shirt.
I appreciated that!
Christy holds a snoozing Hickory Highlands hen ~~ Photo by Josy Welty
Last summer, Mike Scanlon and I recorded two of my hero ballads in Jesse James' new studio in his basement. (Jesse moved since then but he and his equipment are still in Fairfield.) The space was perfect for us ~~ low-key concrete, fine audio equipment, and Jesse's keen ear for mix. Josy sat beside Jesse behind the sound board, observing the whole scene with quiet support.
We had planned on recording only Hero so that's all we prepared, but things clicked along so well I added two more songs, although one of them just wasn't prepped enough to make the grade for the blog.
Although these songs were recorded a year ago, I didn't post them here sooner because the original intention was not to post them on the blog, but to give an interested drummer something of ours to work with until our schedules and practice spaces could line up enough for us to get together for a session. So they have a singer-songwriter sense, almost folk sound maybe, which is simpler and quieter than usual for me.
In spite of efforts to bring players together, we were not able to play these with a drummer, and then the band evaporated within weeks of recording these songs. So as an homage to the old band and as a sketch for a future band, I feel grateful to have these in our archives.
Drummers be warned: we did not use a metronome and the timing is uneven.
Would You Catch Me was first recorded at our first open mic back in April 2012 after I wrote it in December 2011. The audio file below is from June 2015.
Would You Catch Me posed a question in G minor pentatonic, and the answer in real life turned out to be "No". From the ashes of that dashed hope came an almost country-western ballad with a few G major chords. I wrote Hero in December 2013.
Must be the somber reflection during hibernation in winter that brings out my ballads.
Jesse James can be reached by email: jjamestech @ g m a i l . c o m
More change. Steve Jeffries, our sax/harp/percussionist decided to part ways with the band. He plans to put more attention on jazz ~ he plays with the Dave Leffler group ~ and do a few gigs with his other band, Blue Cat Alley. I enjoyed the two years that Steve grooved with the band, and I wish him all the best.
After hearing this Monday afternoon that my band now has no established members besides me, a wise friend said, "Your band is in its unmanifest state. What lies ahead is the field of all possibilities."
It's very encouraging in a strange way. Totally true, not faky, it calls my spirit to speak clear and strong for the unfolding future, to be ready for the next adventure.
