A twenty year career of performing and recording original steel-string guitar music has led me full circle to this new project, and it’s an invigorating change of pace. After entertaining countless questions along the lines of “What did you listen to, and what did you play, when you were starting out?,” and after recognizing that music with which the audience is familiar can be used to build a wonderful bridge to the new and original portions of my repertoire, I consciously set out last year to create a [bad text] envisioned. I decided early on that I did not want a “cover” CD as such, and would only record pieces that lent themselves to arrangements that would make them both familiar and yet original as well. I wanted people to enjoy the pleasures that recognizable music can provide and be transported to new terrain at the same time.
Pop music was the musical water in which I swam as I grew up, and there is a healthy dose of it here, framed in some unusual choices of songs, arrangements and tunings.
As a musical youth my ears traveled throughout the folk world, and I was drawn to the beauty of Celtic, bluegrass and old-time melodies early on. You’ll find some of each included here as well- slow airs, hornpipes, jigs and reels.
Later, as I became a more “conscious” listener and an eventual student of music theory, the music of Bach became, in the words of my favorite theory teacher, “sweetly inevitable.” I’ve always loved the Brandenburg Concertos, and chose the opening melody from my favorite, as well as another surprise hidden in the Jethro Tull medley.
Of course I was awakened by the same epiphany which just about all fingerstyle guitarists of my listening era experienced, as John Fahey and Leo Kottke awoke us to the possibilities of the steel-string guitar as an original concert and recording voice. I’ve included one of each of my favorites from these two guitar titans, spun a bit to suit my quirks and tastes.
All of these textures and sources have mingled in “Under the
Influence,” and it is my hope that the resulting recording will provide both the
soothing and the stimulating sonic experiences that were my original goals.
The songs
Nights in White Satin (6:30)- An oldies’ classic, whose emotional
draw has never faded for me, but has instead resided in my musical consciousness as a
puzzle which I would some day have to resolve. I worked on this piece for two years,
changing tunings at one point, adding the E-bow at another, and tinkering interminably
before finally finding the voice I sought.
Martha My Dear (3:47)- I used to work and teach in a music store in Salt
Lake City, and my happy, ragtimey piano-type arrangement of this less-familiar Beatle tune
began to take shape there, more than twenty years ago,. It was reshaped and finished in
the year that preceded this recording.
Shea Beag Shea Mhor/The Coola Shores (4:38)- I have loved “Shea
Beag” since I first heard it 25 years ago, but I decided not to record it until I
created an arrangement that would include my own voice along with this beautiful
melody.That desire led me to write the new opening and closing sequences, which use the
chord changes of “Shea Beag” as a basis for some jazzy arpeggiation, and to pair
it with “The Coola Shores,” which is a much lesser known, but no less beautiful,
melody.
Ohio (3:20)- CSNY kept rising to the top of the pile as I chose potential
pieces, boosted by their reliance on acoustic guitars within the rock context and their
shimmering harmonies, but I couldn’t seem to find the right song until May 4 of this
year. On the 30th anniversary of the student shooting at Kent State, this song and this
arrangement popped up unexpectedly, to become the final song which I included in the
collection.
Revisiting the Sailor’s Grave (3:30)- There was a time when
Leo’s twelve-string playing was a primal force in my music, and I wanted to thank him
by taking one of his tunes that I loved from the seminal “Armadillo” album and
reshaping it a little bit. I ended up reshaping it more than the “little bit”
that I had originally intended, and I changed the title to reflect that evolution. I hope
Leo doesn’t mind.
California Dreamin’/Paint It Black/Runaway (7:25)- I recorded the
Mamas and Papas/Rolling Stones medley fifteen years ago, and they’ve become a
signature performance piece for me, but over the years they’ve evolved a bit from my
old version, and I’ve also recently added the Del Shannon classic. With a dreamy
intro, an E-bow break, a driving middle section, and the falsetto “wah wahs” and
organ solo from the original “Runaway,” this medley ranges across a wide
spectrum of tones and emotions, and was a real bugger to capture on tape. For that reason,
my shorthand nickname for this medley is “CPR.”
The Huckleberry Hornpipe/Limerock/The Kitchen Girl (3:45)- Bluegrass and
old-time musicians taught me these songs long ago in the music store in which I worked and
taught, and the trip towards my arrangement of this medley began there. I recorded
“Huckleberry” once in 1982, and played it in the National Fingerstyle
Championship in Winfield, Kansas that same year, but only in recent months did I realize
that these pieces would work together as they do.
The Last Steam Engine Train (2:57)- John Fahey began the whole acoustic
guitar movement in the late 1950’s when he began recording for his fledgling Tacoma
label, and this song attracted me to his music in the beginning of my fingerstyle life.
Rather than try and create a strict imitation of his playing, I’ve sped it up a bit,
and thrown in some original melodic variations here and there.
Nothing is Easy/Bourree (5:12)- I have to confess; I loved Jethro Tull,
and their early albums became part of my musical backdrop for a long period of my life
during high school, college, and beyond. My challenge here was to find pieces among
JT’s quirky acoustic-Celtic-rock amalgam that would convey their (and my) musical
intentions when translated to solo guitar. After the very brief quote from
“Aqualung” which begins this medley, this marriage of my favorite piece from the
“Stand Up” album with my spin on JT’s spin on the Bach Bourree took me most
of a year to arrange, then most of another year to play well enough to record. The
call-and-response of Ian Anderson’s flute and Martin Barre’s lead guitar in
“Nothing is Easy” tortured me for a while, as did its quarter-note triplet
melodies on top of straight quarter-note bass, which kept my right thumb and fingers in
rhythmic stitches for a couple of months.
Bach to Ireland (4:54)- Beginning with my favorite melody from
Brandenburg Concerto VI and moving into full arrangements of “Cunla” and
“Merrily Kiss the Quaker’s Wife,” these pieces are staples of my recent
concert repertoire. I apologize for the title, but plead that Bach’s name has
provided a source of bad puns for more than 300 years, so I’m keeping an old
tradition.
Hey Jude (3:48)- This song has always held a valedictory quality for me,
as I suspect it has for a lot of people, and I have wanted to use it to close the CD since
this project took shape. I spent quite a while finding the tuning and the arrangement that
would allow me to express these emotions, and the solo E-bow ending seem a fitting
conclusion to this somewhat meditative approach.
Tech Talk
Several Taylor guitars were used for this recording, including my
new CPSM, my trusty 912C Brazilian Rosewood 6-string, a rehabilitated old 512C mahogany
6-string, a restrung 955 maple 12-string used for occasional bass doubling, and a LKSM
12-string. They were all strung with various sorts of GHS phosphor bronze strings (Elixirs
on the 12-strings). We used Schoeps CMC-5 and Neumann U-67 microphones into Summit and
Great River preamps, Sunrise and Fishman Rare Earth pickups into Rane and ART preamps, all
sent directly to 20 bit digital tape, and used the Apogee 1000 analog-to-digital converter
for the final mix.
Thanks
Big thanks go to all of the folks at Taylor Guitars, whose instruments made this recording such a joy: to Bob and Kurt, to TJ and John D, to Amy and Buzz and the PR crew, to Larry B, David H, and Bob Z, and to Tim, Dave, Glen, Zach and everyone in the repair department for service above and beyond. Thanks to GHS and Elixir for all kinds of cool strings, and to Rane for the hardest working preamp in show business.
Thanks to David Wilkinson for his mics, preamps, and engineering, to Glen Neibaur at LA East for his ears, patience and attention to mixing .detail, to Barry Gibbons at Platinum Labs for his mastering expertise, and to Oasis for helping to make this happen on a tight deadline.
Big hugs for Henry and Karen, an isle of respite in the touring
desert, and biggest hugs of all for Tomi Jean.
Recorded at Wilkinson Studios, Salt Lake City, Utah
Engineered by David Wilkinson
Mixed at LA East, Salt Lake City, Utah
Mix Engineered by Glen Neibaur
Mastered at Platinum Labs, Salt Lake City, Utah
Mastering engineering by Barry Gibbons
Produced By Chris Proctor
Artwork by Laurie Downing
Artwork and sound recording ©2000, Sugarhouse Records
All arrangements published by Chris Proctor, ©2000 Sugarhouse Music (BMI)
Credits
Nights in White Satin (Justin Hayward, Essex Music ASCAP), Martha My Dear and Hey Jude,
(Lennon-McCartney, Sony-ATV Music, BMI) Huckleberry Hornpipe (Byron Berline, United
Artists/EMI Music ASCAP), Nothing Is Easy (Ian Anderson, Chrysalis Music ASCAP), Ohio
(Neil Young, Broken Arrow-Cotillion Music, BMI), Sailor’s Grave (Round Wound
Sound-Bug Music, ASCAP), Last Steam Engine Train (John Fahey, Terrapin Music, BMI),
California Dreamin’ (John and Michelle Gilliam, Universal-MCA Music, ASCAP), Paint It
Black (Jagger-Richards, Abkco Music, BMI), Runaway (Del Shannon-Max Crook, Bug-Mole Hole
Music, BMI)