I just had the extreme good fortune today to attend an intimate acoustic "show" with Dave playing solo in someone’s home. As I drove away on my scooter, I started thinking about the lessons I had just absorbed from this master songwriter and performer.

If age ever mattered, It doesn’t now

There is this notion out there that an artist’s best work is done in his younger years, and by the time he’s past 50, certainly, he’s done as a creative force. The press loves to take a legendary artist and then compare a new song they’ve heard twice to a song they’ve been living with for 30 years. This happens daily. But to my ears, Dave’s powers of melody, story and songcraft are increasing. And the signs of age, only add to the personae and gravitas of his work. He doesn’t need to dye his beard or wear a wig or pretend to be 25.

Respect the New Material

Dave will play an old song, but he plays the new stuff and he stands up next to it and says, “This is as good as anything I’ve ever done.” He doesn’t beg you to sit through the new material  as payment to hear an old favorite. He treats his new material with love and dignity.

Give The Audience Some Help…

Dave talks about his songs. He sometimes gives you a sentence, and sometimes a whole story. But whichever way he goes, he gives you just enough to be in the world of the song. You’re hungry for every word. You’ve been completely primed for the experience.

…But Don’t Kiss Their Ass

Dave exhibits great dignity even in a humble surrounding playing for 25 people. He doesn’t glad hand and kiss ass. He’s there on business, and he means business. He stands apart, warming up and getting ready. He’s not taking himself too seriously, but he takes the work seriously.

Hey, Were in the middle of the new record and we're documenting the entire process on my blog. Video, Photos and the play by play. See it HERE. grantlangston.com/category/blog

So, we've moved to the overdub stage of the recording process. What in the Sam Hill are overdubs? We cut the basic instruments during the first week of recording and now we're adding instruments that are extra's. Things that may or may not work out, but that we want to try out with the tracks. Things like fiddle, piano, sax, and some backing vocals. Because you record these items one at a time, you can generally work in smaller rooms. We started with Baritone and Tenor sax. Now, you normally don't hear sax on country records, and that's why we're doing it. Well, I'm a firm believer that the song tells you what it needs. You don't decide, "Dammit, this song needs horns by hook or by crook." You listen and the music sorta talks to you. You kind of hear the parts that aren't there, and so you go and find people to create them. Dave Woodford was recommended by Rich McCulley who is engineering these sessions, and who owns the studio. He is a legendary player. This is one of the big benefits of working in Los Angeles. You can pick up the phone and get the guy who played every major recorded sax part since 1975 to come down and play on your song. The video tells you alot about Dave. The next day we had Nicole Gordon come in to start working on the backing vocals. I've known her for years, and she sang a duet with me back on the Koreatown record, "Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man", which was originally recorded by Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn. We had a great time singing that, even though I did need to give her a couple lessons on singing southern. (She's from Philly) Nicole has one of those voices, she can sing almost anything, and when the time calls for it...she can wail. What a joy. Nicole is one of those people that has her own career singing, songwriting, as well as doing session-work. An amazingly talented person. Day 8 was fiddle and we got Aubrey Richmond. I had never met her before, but she's played a lot around town and the world (including Guantanamo Bay, Cuba!) and once we started comparing notes it's hard to believe we've never played together. Typically, you like to give a player an easier song first, but she started with "Along for the Ride", which is turning out to be a barn-burner. Again, I didn't envision it that way, but the song is telling me what it wants. More Horns! More Fiddle! I'm starting to feel like that guy in The Shining. Drummer Tony Horkins makes a guest appearance. Here she is working on the easier track, "Working Until I Die"

We've rapped up our time at Kingsize Soundlabs. Let me give you a rundown of what happened. 5 days of all day long studio work is a little disorienting, but at the end of the day the majority of the 11 tracks we recorded went down between 2pm Monday and 4pm Tuesday. The band played and played and played. I have to hand it to Tony Horkins, Josh Fleeger, and Larry Marciano. I was not sure if these guys could record live as a unit. It's pressure-filled and you've got to have you A game working. They all kicked ass. After 4pm tuesday we started thinking about fixing the little mistakes we made but keeping the basic tracks. So, for instance, 98% of Josh's bass track would be fine. Josh would either punch in and fix his mistake or Producer Paul would find a note somewhere in the song that was the same as the flub and cut and paste the fix in. This is an amazing and terrible tool. Luckily, we didn't have to do too much computer magic to get things where they should be. Then Larry and I began playing around with different guitars to create some interesting tones on top of what we already had. The details of all this may bore some readers, but I brought two amps into the session. A 1965 Fender Deluxe reissue and a 1964 Fender VibroVerb reissue. The idea behind re-issued amps is that a company will pull the old original schematic for a very popular amplifier and make a new version. It let's you get your hands on the old fashioned sound without paying thousands and thousands of dollars. It's also important if you're a traveling band because things had a tendency to get stolen. Losing an original 1965 deluxe on the road would put me in the frame of mind to slash my wrists. So, this is a good option. The deluxe was too noisy, so we used the big 'un, the vibroverb to cut my guitar parts with my Gretsch 6120 guitar. Once we had that tone down we went back with my beloved 1976 Les Paul and THE studio amp, an actual late 60's Fender Princeton. It's a small amp, but it just sounds perfect. Then Larry came in and did some additional parts, mixing tones and parts. We've got some video of Larry sitting with Paul and working on guitar parts. Then I cut some mandolin, some B3, (very basic B3), and a little Farfeeza organ, which you may never hear in the final product. Just experimenting. Along the way tony jumped in when someone had to have a smoke break and cut tambourine, shaker, and other percussion. Because a man can only sing so much in a day, I tried to cut vocals a little each day. But of course, we're doing all this in 5 days and that doesn't leave as much luxury for 11 songs as you might like. By Thursday night I had knocked out most everything. Friday morning, I was patching up a few parts and leaned in too close to the mic, causing it to distort. When it comes to guitars distortion is a good thing, and a slight distortion on a vocal is also pretty charming. If you listen to the old Otis Redding records he drives that microphone so hard. It distorts at every turn, and man, he sounds great. I've never done it before, but Paul liked what he heard and so...I basically RE-SANG in the entire album on Friday. One right after the next...Bam, Bam, Bam. I was a mess when it was over. In fact I had to go be on a radio show...hosted by my friend Shark. 103.1 is the station and I've got some photos here from that as well. WHAT A DAY! I even met Donald Duck at the radio station! So, by the time we got to the end of the evening on Friday we had 11 tunes, lacking only some overdubs. It was hard work and an amazing experience. I'll keep you in the loop as we continue forward with ROYAL MONACO! [caption id="attachment_1288" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Paul manning the board..."][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1289" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="The team after a week of hard work..."][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1290" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="The man in the booth..."][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1293" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Fleeger lays down his massive and imposing licks on the ugliest ovation bass..."][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1294" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Dont ask..."][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1295" align="aligncenter" width="224" caption="I bump into Donald Duck at the radio station..."][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1297" align="aligncenter" width="224" caption="The Indie 103.1 studio and DJ Shark..."][/caption]