Richard wrote on his diary again:
Hi from Nashville. It has been a very mild autumn and the fall colours continue beautifully, though the leaves are really beginning to come off the trees now.
It's been a busy period of recording lately and I've been fortunate to be involved in a couple of really great and interesting projects. The first that comes to mind is an album with Kieran Kane, who was half of The O'Kanes. Kieran's had a successful, if somewhat under the radar solo career and has been a pal for as long as I've been in Nashville. He wrote a stack of dark and gothic folk type songs with a five string banjo tuned to his own invention. It should not be mistaken for Scruggs style bluegrass but rather modal and droning. The songs are blues tinged and the whole affair is where Appalachia meets the Delta. Now what's really even more unusual is the instrumentation he put together to record, Kieran singing and playing banjo, a female baritone sax player, Kieran's son playing a floor tom and occasional cymbal and me on electric guitar. The four of us gathered in a small recording studio in the Nashville suburb of Berry Hill and in two nights recorded seven things...all live including the vocal. It sounds as big as a house and the combination of instruments is brilliant. Even though the tunes are folk and there's a banjo droning throughout, the prevailing vibe says Gotham, sort of like a Greenwich Village fire escape at 4 in the morning. Kieran's got a few more tunes to finish and we'll go in for one more round to finish things up.
Another cool project has been with Scottish blue-eyed soul singer Johnny Reid who is currently a huge success in Canada. Johnny's a great writer and singer and the style is very much 60's r&b and soul. This was another album that was recorded almost exclusively live on the floor of the studio as opposed to a piece or two at a time and it is by far my favourite way to record music.
I have begun a new solo album for myself and will chip away at that from time to time over the coming year and will be leaving for London in a couple of weeks to play on Mark Knopfler's new record. Cannot wait to see the gang again.
My wife informs me that a record I played on back in late 1975, Let Your Love Flow by The Bellamy Brothers is currently #30 on the U.K. pop charts again! It was apparently used in a Barclay Card advert and the original record took off again after 32 years! That's me playing electric guitar. We found a clip on YouTube of them singing it to the track from '76 and I have to admit it still sounds good to my cloth ears.
And finally....the new album by Phil Lee is out. We finished recording it just before I left last March to go on tour. It's called So Long It's Been Good To Know You and I think it is his best crop of songs yet. He's been talking with the folks at Vapour Records, Neil Young's label, and they're very keen on it, but in the meantime he has done a limited run of CDs and they are available on Phil's website,
www.phillee1.comHere's wishing only good things as we head into the winter, the new year. So long,
Richard
Nashville, Tennesee
(13NOV08)
