Summer Swelter

Hey all,

Don’t know about you but Nashville is just about melting down, high 90s and humidity in the upper 70% range. You need gills to breathe. We did get a bit of relief yesterday afternoon when the skies opened up and gave us a 1/4” of sorely needed rain. The temps briefly dropped a little but came roaring back with a vengeance after the rain passed. With the heat index it feels like 105-110 in the shade. Apart from that summer’s been great so far, the new Weber’s getting a good work out.

I’ve been finishing up a new album for Iris DeMent, just down to the final mix adjustments then on to mastering. Pieta Brown has joined the production team which also includes Jim Rooney who produced several sides as well. It’s all shaped up to be a beautiful album of songs, uplifting without being Pollyanna and spiritual without ever treading down the religious root cellar. It’s always a pleasure working with Iris. Not sure when it will be released but I’ll keep you posted here when it’s available.

As for my own new album, I know it’s been a long time coming but finally we’re looking at September 2nd as the official roll out at all the streaming and downloading services. The album is called Tall Tale Tunes and I’m calling it a folk collection although not everyone will hear it that way. My old pal Marty Stuart wrote the liner notes and really outdid himself, made me blush when I read them. Anyway, I will have much more to say about the record and a surprise announcement about how you can get an autographed pre-release copy. So watch this space around the early part of August. Meantime this is how I describe the record and recording process:

“With the release of my first album, Themes From A Rainy Decade, I began to take the writing and recording of instrumental music as a serious endeavour and new chapter in what was already a long and lucky career.

Over the course of composing and releasing six albums, occasionally a melody would come along that felt like a folk tune in it’s simplicity. Somehow they never quite fit into whatever album I was working on at the moment, so I began a separate folder with “Folk” scrawled across it in pencil. Whenever one of these tunes came to me I’d write it out and file it there.

Near the completion of my last record, Ballads In Otherness, a pair of these folksy tunes tumbled out of my guitar within a few days of each other. I dutifully transcribed them to manuscript and deposited them in the folk folder. I was surprised by how many songs had accumulated and began playing through them, pleased that many still held water for me as compositions. I’d already been thinking ahead to the record that would follow Ballads In Otherness, wanting something different but having no idea what that might be. Playing my way through the folk folder I realised the next record was sitting right there in front of me.

I began recording in November of 2018 laying down three or four tunes very quickly before putting the project away to commence a tour with Mark Knopfler. I came back to it again in late 2019 having written some more while on the road and put my shoulder to the wheel intending to get the record out by Spring of 2020. As 2020 unfolded, the awful news that a strange new virus, C-19 was sweeping the world and by March we’d all retreated from work and into our homes. The folk project sat patiently waiting another 15 months before I would come back to the studio and complete it. It’s been a long time and I’ve lived with many of these recordings for nearly three years never tiring of them. At their heart these Tall Tale Tunes are simple melodies that I’ve chosen to treat in some unusual ways. Not everyone will hear it as folk music but that genre is a broad banner and to my way of thinking Tall Tale Tunes falls squarely under it’s heading.

What is folk music? Stop the first 40 people you meet and ask that question. You’ll likely get as many answers and they’ll all be correct. Anglo, Scot, Irish? African, European, South American, North American, Australian? The ballads and songs collected by Child, Sharpe, A.P. Carter and the Lomax’s? Ethnic musics, the blues, jazz? Leadbelly, Guthrie, Seeger, The Kingston Trio? Ramblin’ Jack? Ramblin’ Bob? Peter, Paul, Mary? Joan Baez, Joni M, Johnny Cash? Trad-folk, psych-folk, folk-rock, folk revival, skiffle? The simple answer to this and more is yes. Like all music that has proven hearty and durable, folk music covers a lot of ground and criss-crosses continents.

To it I would add purpose-written songs by pop and country tunesmiths to evoke a folk flavour; Kisses Sweeter Than Wine, Scarlet Ribbons, Sixteen Tons, The Battle Of New Orleans, It Was A Very Good Year, High Noon, The Three Bells, The Long Black Veil and so many more. According to Big Bill Broonzy, “All the songs I ever heard in my life was folk songs. I never heard horses sing none of ‘em yet.”

The music has breadth, scope and a common thread; songs that tell a tale, a story in words and simple tunes. That is what I’ve tried to do with this collection of Tall Tale Tunes, convey a narrative but solely through music without the specifics of words. The title of each conjures a story that the music suggested to me as I wrote them, however, I encourage you to let these tunes create your own movie. After all, folk music always had a way of changing to best suit whoever held it at the moment.

They’re in your hands now.”

See you back here in a few weeks,

Richard