Shenandoah Wind CD Review
San Diego Troubadour August 2005 by Dwight Worden
Shenandoah Wind is one fine CD by one great musician, Eric Uglum. From the opening title cut, Shenandoah Wind, to the final track of Eric's haunting solo guitar finger-picked version of, Battle Cry of Freedom, this is top notch stuff by Eric with the help of some true bluegrass greats of our time. Alison Krauss lends her voice to the title cut, Shenandoah Wind. Rob Ickes of Blue Highway and multi-time "dobro player of the year" winner plays on four cuts. Stuart Duncan of the Nashville Bluegrass Band and seven-time "fiddle player of the year" delivers exquisite fiddle on all cuts except for Eric's solo guitar closing piece. Ron Block of Alison Krauss and Union Station sings and plays guitar or banjo on most cuts, and Chris Stuart of Chris Stuart and Backcountry contributes two of his original songs (Shenandoah Wind and Farewell for a Little While) and lends his fluid voice to three cuts. Eric's stepson, Christian Ward, plays fiddle on Jamie Raeburn, with Janet Beazley of Chris Stuart and Backcountry playing tinwhistles on the same tune. Irl Hess holds down the bass on all cuts except Eric's final guitar solo, and Roger Gillespie provides discrete and tasteful percussion on three cuts.
What makes Shenandoah Wind stand out is the depth of Eric's talent. Notwithstanding the stellar supporting cast, this CD is about Eric and what a great musician and singer he is in his own right. His voice is hauntingly clear and melodious, and he sings lead as well as you will ever hear it done. Eric's guitar playing, both rhythm and lead is exceptional, and his mandolin playing is outstanding.
Shenandoah Wind, his first solo CD, confirms what insiders have long known: the man can do it all. If you think Eric is tucked in the back and carried by the supporting cast of greats, think again. He is at the center of each cut, expressing his musicianship and subtle sense of taste in a way that makes this a CD you will never tire of. To top it off, Eric co-produced the CD, participated in the mixing, and did the final mastering in his own studio. The only mystery is why such talent is not better known. Perhaps this CD will begin to change that. Shenandoah Wind is a definite must have for any bluegrasser or acoustic music fan. I highly recommend it.
The Old Road to Jerusalem CD Review
By Joe Ross Bluegrass Now staff writer
Eric Uglum’s solo debut release, Shenandoah Wind, turned heads and made a significant mark back in 2004. Now, while Eric Uglum is guitarist, mandolinist and lead vocalist on this latest album, the project is really a collaborative ensemble endeavor. It’s a recording debut for his two teenaged stepsons (Christian and Austin Ward) who perform as fiddler and bassist with Chris Stuart & Backcountry. Eric also recently joined that group (replacing Mason Tuttle). Chris Stuart sings harmony on five tracks, and others assisting include Ron Block, Janet Beazley, Bud Bierhaus, Roger Gillespie and Edwin Uglum (Eric and Stacey’s youngest son). While standard bluegrass instrumentation is used, the banjo and mandolin only make occasional appearances. The set also has flavorings of pennywhistles, drums, percussion, and even a tad of finger cymbals, viola and electric bass. Block and Uglum have been friends for many years and go back to their bands of the early-1980s, Weary Hearts and New Wine. Bierhaus can trace his musical collaboration with Uglum back to the fine band, Copperline.
Adding to their creative Americana muse, there’s an interesting choice of not-so-standard material, much from others with California connections. An uptempo “Paper Heart” opens the CD with some fire and fury, and that song comes from singer/songwriter Patrick Brayer, who “grew up in slow motion on an egg ranch just off of route 66 in the desert town of Fontana, Ca.” Oden Fong’s “Sidney the Pirate” is a folk ballad that imparts spiritual revelation in a song written by a pastor in Huntington Beach who had been a member of Mustard Seed Faith back in the 70s. Chris Stuart has been highly praised as an award-winning songwriter, and his two contributions (“The Old Road to Jerusalem” and “First Train Robbery”) certainly don’t disappoint. The former has excellent lyrics and fine presentation, while the latter is based on an actual historical event that occurred in 1866 when the masked Reno Brothers boarded an east bound Ohio & Mississippi passenger train near Seymour, Indiana and robbed the safes. Byron Berline’s “Sweet Memory Waltz” is a pleasant offering with twin fiddles and some phrasing that reminds me of “The Waltz You Saved For Me.” Taking on classic jazz tunes (“Undecided”), favorite gospel (“Life’s Railway to Heaven”), traditional (“Old Blue,” “Pretty Little Miss”) and popular melodies (“Edelweiss”) are also in the musicians’ bag of eclecticism. Christian Ward wrote the fiddle tune entitled “Stonewall,” and the group’s cover of a hit for Linda Ronstadt and Bonnie Raitt (“Love Has No Pride”) is imparted with a relaxed folk aura embellished by Uglum’s smooth baritone vocals.
Besides being well grounded as a musician, Eric Uglum started recording projects at his New Wine Studio in 1997. In the arid high desert of Hesperia, Ca. (between San Diego and Las Vegas), Eric, Christian and Austin have another winner in the “tone, timing and taste” department. With plenty of mood from traditional to contemporary, and Celtic to California, “The OldRoad to Jerusalem” offers a musical elixir with an intoxicating effect. Yet another milestone from a well-established California musician and his family, Uglum and company’s musical fermentation is effervescent, largely due to their emphasis on both new and older acoustic spirits. This sparkling 2007 album is of a very good vintage….with music not too dry or sweet, heavy or light. (Joe Ross)
Eric Uglum - Tone, Taste and Timing
First published in Bluegrass Now magazine. by Chris Stuart. Used by permission.
About halfway between San Diego and Las Vegas, Interstate15 climbs through the Cajon Pass in the Sierras of southern California and onto the high desert. In the summer, temperatures above 100 degrees are not uncommon. Front yards are little more than rock and sand relieved only by scrub brush and Joshua trees. In the winter, snow storms gather strength through the pass and blow through the town with full force. For most of the year, the nearby Mojave River is nothing more than an empty ravine, until flash floods scour it, maintaining its designation as a river.
It's here, on a slight rise overlooking the desert, that New Wine Sound Studio thrives. Ron Block has recorded here. Sean Watkins. Lost Highway. The Cherryholmes Family. And many other bands.
Entering the studio, one is immediately impressed by the amount and range of recording gear, the isolated recording areas, the comfortable and acoustically superior control room, the pictures on the wall. But that's not what makes this a great studio. What makes New Wine Studios great is the man sitting at the console, Eric Uglum.
In the past, bluegrass from California has acquired an undeserved reputation as noodly, soulless and gutless. Sometimes east coast reviewers start out by emphasizing in a detracting manner that the band is from California-as if that should be taken into consideration as an extreme handicap. But what Eric Uglum has been teaching and playing for over twenty years out here is as fundamental as the land that surrounds him-good tone, good taste and good timing.
In that sense, there is no more traditional a musician in the country than Eric Uglum. His roots come directly from the Stanley Brothers, and in fact his first musical memory is of seeing them perform on the Pete Seeger television show. As Eric says, he didn't know what he was hearing, but he knew it was great.
The tones he was hearing in bluegrass led him to take up the guitar in the mid-seventies and study the styles of Carter Stanley and George Shuffler, then Clarence White and Tony Rice. He learned the fiddle tunes. He learned the licks. But it was the tone of the guitar that he fell in love with-the way the cross-picking holds the rhythm together, the way soulfull fills frame the lead vocal, the way the spaces between the notes create the melody.
Eric was born in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, but moved to southern California early, living first in Downey and then growing up mostly in Huntington Beach.
In the early 1980s he met Ron Block and together with Mike Bub and Butch Baldassari, formed a now almost legendary band, Weary Hearts. The band astounded people with their rock-solid traditional sound and the brother-like vocal blend of Eric and Ron Block. More importantly, the two share a musical and philosophical bond as best friends (Ron and Sandra named their second child Erica after Eric).
After touring with Weary Hearts for two years, Eric formed another band, New Wine, with Ron and Sandra Block and Rob Ickes on dobro. After Ron continued his career with Alison Krauss, Eric-with Janet Beazley on banjo, Marshall Andrews on bass, and Bud Bierhaus on guitar-formed Copperline which released an album "Long, Long Way" and performed a showcase at the IBMA conference in 1996.
In 1997, Eric joined Ken Orrick, Dick Brown, Paul Shelasky and Marshall Andrews in Lost Highway, another traditional band from southern California that has built a large fan base and tours extensively around the country, the United Kingdom and Europe. Eric plays mandolin and guitar in the band and his tenor singing to Ken Orrick's lead is a vital part of the band's sound. His singing of Mansion on the Hill and his solo guitar on Battle Cry of Freedom is an often requested highlight of the Lost Highway show.
Also in 1997, Eric began engineering and producing projects under the name New Wine Sound Studio.
That's the rough outline of Eric's musical career-the initial defining moment of hearing the Stanley Brothers; the parking lot picking and making friends with such great California bluegrass musicians as Ron Block, Stuart Duncan, and Rob Ickes; playing in several bands; the creation of his studio; and his current work with Lost Highway.
At the same time, Eric manages to keep up his interests in paleontology, theology, archaeology, and astronomy, and with his wife Stacey, raise their children Austin, Christian, and the newest one, Edwin.
Until recently though, Eric's name has not been frequently seen at bluegrass festivals or in publications. He has a disinterest in publicity for its own sake and thinks of himself as a sideman, placing the song in the spotlight rather than himself. And yet, in spite of that, or perhaps because of it, he's had a tremendous impact on musicians from Ron Block to Rob Ickes to Julie Elkins. Eric's guitar playing and singing is as powerful and original as anyone's in bluegrass.
Fans and friends of Eric's had almost given up on him doing a solo CD, but that CD, produced by Janet Beazley, is now available (street date of January 2004) under the title "Shenandoah Wind" on Backcountry Records. (ericuglum.com)
It combines traditional songs such as Wandering Boy, Lover's Quarrel and Mansion on the Hill, with newer compositions from people such as Pat Metheny. But the tone of the album remains true to Eric's musical aesthetic. It's a tour-de-force of good tone, good timing, and good taste-understated, soulful playing, great singing, and attention to the demands of each song. Eric's love of slow country ballads is evident in "If A Broken Heart Could Kill", and his love of music of the British Isles is reflected in "Jaimie Raeburn."
The guests on the album include Alison Krauss-who sings high baritone on the title track -Ron Block, Stuart Duncan, Rob Ickes, and Irl Hees. But it's Eric's guitar and voice that are for once at the center of a CD.
With a full touring schedule with Lost Highway (www.losthighwaybluegrass.com), recording, engineering, and producing (Eric's next project will be as producer on Sally Jones's forthcoming album on Pinecastle Records), and a solo CD, Eric's musical career has finally started to step out into the public eye. But his mantra has not changed. It is still "tone, taste and timing."
Shenandoah Wind CD Review
Bluegrass Now Magazine Sept 2004 by Joe Falletta
This is a wonderful debut CD for Eric Uglum, longtime a favorite son in the California bluegrass scene.
No less than Ron Block of Alison Krauss and Union Station writes in the liner notes "(Eric's) soulfulness, great talent, and strong philosophy are plainly evident.... one hearing of Shenandoah Wind ought to make believers of the rest of the world." Amen to that. Besides his words of praise, Ron lends his prodigious talents to this CD as well, along with Alison Krauss, Lost Highway, Stuart Duncan, Rob Ickes, and Chris Stuart. Eric's guitar playing is always masterful, solid on flatpick and fingerstyle guitar, his baritone vocals resonant and stirring, all with a reverent treatment of traditional bluegrass songs and tunes. The title cut is a lovely song by Chris Stuart, a fine songwriter in his own right, and features Alison on background vocals, Stuart on fiddle and mandolin, and Rob on Dobro. From there, Eric favors us with a very moving treatment of the traditional "Jamie Raeburn," with some lovely fiddle work from Stuart and Christian Ward, then another bluegrass traditional, "Lovers' Quarrel," before changing flavors with Pat Methany and Lyle Mays' lovely instrumental "Travels." This is one you'll want to play over and over, and features Ron, Stuart and Rob, along with Irl Hess on acoustic bass, and Roger Gillespie, percussion.
Eric's solo fingerstyle guitar arrangement on the closing cut, the traditonal Civil War tune, "Battle Cry of Freedom," is stunning and quite moving in it's simplicity. His vocal work is powerful on Hank's William's timeless, "Mansion on the Hill." "If a Broken Heart Could Kill" is heart rending. Needless to say, by now, every cut on this CD is a true gem, worth its own attention in this review if that were possible. All I can add is, "What took you so long, Eric?" This man is very deserving of notice on a grand scale.
So You Want to Record a CD?
First published in iBluegrass on-line. by Ray Graeff. Used by permission.
The wife and I have a pretty good band, Heritage, out of northern Missouri. We have been asked a lot lately if we have tapes and CD's for sale. 'No, sorry, we don't, but we're thinking about doing one...'. OK, Now what?
There are dozen's of Ma and Pa studios around Missouri, which one do you choose? How many songs do you put on a CD? Do you use your own band or hire studio musicians? So many questions, and few answers. How's a fellow to know? You ask questions. Lot's of em!
We are fortunate to have the opportunity to rub elbows with some really good bands, who have tapes for sale. Sounds like the place to start. Some of these bands are friendly and like to visit, some aren't. One of the bands we appeared with was 'Lost Highway' out of California, and they love to visit and jam. They have also made positive comments about Sharon's singing ability and quality. After the show, the bands move out under the shade trees and camper awnings. It took only one mention of 'We're thinking of cutting a CD', to create a storm of encouragement from the whole Lost Highway band. We had noticed that they had four CDs for sale at their table and thought, 'What better ones to ask. These guys obviously already know the ropes'. That turned out to be an excellent plan.
Thirty or forty questions into our 'How does this work', session with them we find that the mandolin player (a fine multi-instrument musician, Eric Uglum) is a recording engineer of high regard and owns New Wine Sound Studio in Hesperia, California. 'But guys, that's 1500 miles from here'! Well, now we have to ask ourselves, 'What quality do we want'? 'Ah, well, errr, we want it to be super, of course We don't want to sell our fans no junk,' they said. 'You guys just get yourself out there, we'll play on the project and do the harmony singing, be glad to do it... ' It appears we'll be headed for California.
Plans were laid to join them (as their guests) at the Blythe, California Bluegrass Festival and spend several days there, and that part of the deal was great, too. We got to see how the California bluegrass scene compares to ours back home. I admit it, we're partial. We did, of course, get to watch Lost Highway in action and marveled at a band called The U.S. Navy Bluegrass Band. They were awesome. See, our tax dollars are spent correctly on occasion.
One of the big things that sold us on New Wine Sound Studio was the availability of at least four high quality microphone choices in the $3,000.00 each range, from Neuman to AKG. The rest of the equipment cannot sound any better than the source, and if the source is the best, then there is a better chance that the finished product will be good. As it turns out these fine microphones were an indicator of the attention to detail and professionalism that we find in the end result, although we didn't think about that part of it at the time.
Now the details start. What do we want to put on the project? Once Sharon had calmed down some from the prospect of doing all this 'Gee Whiz' stuff, we started developing a play list. I think you would have to be a robot to not know what your fans like best from your performances....use those. You've already practiced them a lot doing live shows and the studio is no place to practice, it's expensive. You need to have your material down cold before you ever set foot in a studio. We mentioned that we had some original songs that could maybe go on the project, and the guys jumped on that idea and wanted to hear them.. After they heard the songs, they said by all means, put those on. One of the considerations to doing your own songs is that you don't have to pay the royalties, which can be from 6 cents to 9 cents, per song, per copy made. Ummmm, that can add up pretty quick. Eric, our producer, (has a nice ring to it, don't it?) recommended that we put 12 songs on the CD, and we didn't have any problem at all filling up a page with songs we knew our fans liked, plus some of our songwriting. We would wind up taking 19 songs to our living room and making a home brew demo tape to send out to the guys ahead of our trip, so they could be listening to our choices and learning the original stuff. This list would eventually be trimmed down to 14 (compromise).
Another of the more time consuming things, that you might not think about, were photographs for the tape and CD cover. Our first though was one of the advertised Glamour shot places that advertise heavily, and we called and made an appointment. We got some decent shots of Sharon, but they were just not quite what we were looking for. Now, $130.00 poorer, we thought about the local lady that took the senior pictures of our twin boys when they graduated High School. Those were great, and they had a theme to them, we thought that was the way to go. We were right, it was. Sharon had looked over the song titles for a name to call the CD and was hoping to find just the right name. She settled on 'Mom's Old Picture Book', one of her favorite songs as the name and theme of her CD. When we called our photographer friend, Paula, she suggested we bring an old family album, an old quilt and maybe period costumes to have the cover photo taken. We also had a pile of old black and white mounted pictures and laid them scattered on the quilt for a background shot to backdrop the printed information elsewhere. It worked great. You may not think about the photos and printing on your project as being important, but we were cautioned that a nice looking cover relates directly to sales of your product. We found that good advice, too.
During the trip out to California, from Missouri, we were pleased to find two states that had 75-mph speed limits on their interstate highways (New Mexico and Arizona). It's a good thing too. We were anxious to get out there and would have probably collected a few high speed-driving awards from the local highway patrol. During the trip out there must have been a lot of truckers who wondered if that gal in the van with the guitar in her lap, singing her heart out, was anybody famous. (not quite yet , guys) By the time we reached Blythe Sharon had all her songs down cold, I got to know them pretty well, too.
Eric Uglum is a real pro, but we wondered when we got there, rearing to go, bouncing up and down , rootin, tootin, ready, about his apparent ho-hum attitude. Now, we wondered about having made the right choice. Nope, it just wasn't so. He was excited all right but he'd had lots of experience with 'first time in a studio' people. He slowed us right down to a business like walk. Thank you, Eric. What we got that first day was a tour of the facilities and explanations about how the equipment and the process worked. The familiarization and information session lasted all the first afternoon. If we had begun on the real project immediately, there would have been nothing but re-takes due to our being up tight and over-anxious.
OK, this is the technical part. In the Studio we found a wide selection of microphones. On the bass, Eric used a TLM-170 Neuman and explained that he sometimes used that same mic. for certain vocals too, if they had certain qualities. For the fiddle and guitar, he used KM184 Neumans, good choice, they are really flat in response. The banjo was a little different, Eric chose an AKG 414 to make sure the knock and all the high harmonics were there.
All of the mics went into tube pre-amplifiers before going direct into the inputs of the recorders, by-passing the mixing board entirely. The mixing board would be used only on the mixing process to keep the noise floor as low as possible. The big board would be used on playback/mix/master process so that necessary effects and slight EQing would be possible. One of Eric's favorite statements was, 'Most of the time, less is more'. He'd prove it many times in the next few days.
The mixing boards, by the way, are automated Panasonic DA7's with meter bridges, tied together to make the equivalent of a 72 channel input board. The three Panasonic MDA-1 ADAT recorders, controlled by an Alesis BRC, gave him 24 channel record capabilities. This made one sweet set up, as it was controlled by a foot pedal that allowed him to punch in/punch out for those little one line or one word things on a take, that were bugging him. The BRC control also gave him locate points to automatically return to any song or part of a song that he wished.
Other equipment found in the rack were TL Audio C5021 tube compressors, TL Audio EQ5013 tube equalizers and several computer based hard disk recorders/editors. For the final mixdown Eric explained that he used a TC Electronics mastering compressor into a computer based mastering system. The only effects I saw were the TC Electronics M2000 and that was just fine with us. We are purists when it comes to our bluegrass, and there was no need to try and hide any pitch problems with a heavy-handed dose of reverb. Sharon's voice is one of those that is best left un-trammeled.
Near field monitor speakers right above the board were a pair of Mackie HR 824 powered monitor speakers and a back-up set of Yamaha NS10M's. The far field speakers up in the corners were KRK5000S's
One unique feature I liked very much was Eric's headphone amp/mix system. It was the HDS-6 system and allowed each user to set any mix of 5 different feeds from the board to appear in their headphones in an absolutely custom mode. Individual controls allowed each listener to set the lead vocal, the click track, the bass, the rhythm or lead to their preference without affecting the levels of any other listener. It was great.
Since Eric insisted I look anywhere and at anything in the studio, I opened up the locker that stored his microphone selection. It was a 5 foot metal cabinet and the shelves were full of Nueman U-87's and KM-100's, Russian Octava MCO120s and MK319 condensers, Rode NTV tube condensers, Audio Technica 4060 tubes, 4033's and 4041's. Wow, Eric did his homework on this deal and knew exactly how to get the most bang for his bucks.
Late in that first afternoon Sharon finally got into a sound proofed recording booth with her $3,000.00 microphone and headphones on. In the next hour Eric hooked up (live) at least four different microphones so that he could sample the qualities of her voice through the system. There was no question about this being time well spent either, regardless of studio time costs. Each microphone had it's own distinct sound and although the differences were subtle they were different. The one we finally agreed upon was the AKG C-12 tube mic.
Eric had read us like a book and finally admitted to us that the first afternoon is mostly used to allow time for the fledgling recording artist to get acquainted with these new and intimidating surroundings. He's right, this living room sized control room (directly from 'Star Wars' evidently) is very mind boggling to a first time visitor. There must be 150 pieces of equipment in that room and probably 3,000 knobs and switches. Not everything is used, of course, probably 50% of it is used for 'What ifs and Let's try this' alternatives.
Day two- - - 'OK, let's start......Where's the band?' Eric gave a little sigh and explained 'They probably won't be in until tomorrow or maybe Thursday'. The first real working day is done mostly one-on-one. Sharon had chosen a couple of songs about guitars, so, all we needed was a vocalist and a rhythm guitar, we'd see how it went from there.
Now, I'm not much of a guitar player, but they gave me one anyway, along with an explanation about 'Scratch Tracks'. A scratch track is something you do in a studio that you know when you do it, that it won't be kept for the final mix down, it'll be scratched. 'OK, that's good, I'm a bass player, not a guitarist'.
'Wait a danged minute! I'm hearing what sounds like some jerk beating on a wood block in a kindergarten band'. Again that calm voice comes over the headphones... 'Yes Ray, that's called a click track, it's coming from this computer here on my left and it is used to make sure the timing on the song doesn't vary. Just play along with it, like there is a drum in the band'. ('What th'%~*&%#+ is a drum doing in a bluegrass band'?)
Now that I've gotten over my little tirade about having drums in a bluegrass band, I sat back down, put on my headphones and tried to calm myself. Ok, the wood block guy starts in again, (dandgumsonofamisgegottenrammelranch) I count off 1,2,3 and in my mind I do the kick off lead in for 'Deepening Snow'. (Thank gosh my guitar playin' ain't gonna be on the final tape). After the kick off Sharon (in the other room) took off on the first line of the song. God, that's awesome. Every little breathy sound comes right over the headphones and also onto the tape, the fidelity is terrific.
We finally made it through that one, but it was obvious, my guitar playing just wasn't gonna cut it. Eric now had another hat to wear. Sitting behind the mixing board, he donned his headphones, pulled over a waiting microphone, picked up his 1946 Martin and proceeded to lead Sharon through several more cuts. Just the guitar, click track and Sharon's voice. Eric was surprised that Sharon nailed the first three songs on the first cut. Not me...I had heard her do 'em flawlessly dozens of times on the way out. She knew her material well and as a safeguard she had a copy of all the words right in front of her in the sound proofed room. Good plan for you, too, regardless of how well you think you know those songs...the pressure is on.
Eric now felt that Sharon was comfortable and reasonably cool enough to get down to the serious stuff (I was like a cat on a hot tin roof). He called in Ken Orrick (guitar) and Marshal Andrews (bass) to begin laying down vocal, click, rhythm guitar and bass all in one pass. It worked great. I can't over do this thing about knowing your material when you go into the studio. These pro's were in awe of Sharon's ability to drop in anywhere in the song and do just one line, in time and on pitch. They even made a little game out of testing her ability to do this. Sharon, all enclosed in her own private room, didn't suspect. She would take off cold on a line and then Ken would strike a chord on the guitar, only to find her 'dead on' in regard to pitch. During the next 8 cuts done that second day, Sharon only had to re-take one song due to errors on her part. Way to go....$$$$$$.
The next day Paul Shelasky brought his fiddle by and he got his own private room (fiddles are bad about bleeding over into other microphones). Late in the afternoon Michael Witcher stopped by to do the three songs that required his Dobro. Mike took over the fiddle room while Paul and I had coffee.
Ok, we're moving right along here. The lead vocals are all down on tape and we think they are all keepers. The rhythm and the bass tracks are solid. What a deal... in addition to all the button pushing and knob turning, Eric sat behind the mixing board with headphones on and played a flawless mandolin chop through all the songs. Doing all this while keeping an eye on everyone else. Takes a special person to do that.
The next day didn't require us, so Eric set up an appointment with his friend Dave Zierenburg, a computer graphics artist, at his home a few miles away. We spent the good part of a day placing photographs, writing copy, choosing fonts and sizes and getting everything just right for the covers and booklet of the CD package and the cassette tape package... time and money well spent. It was obvious that Dave was another of the professionals that Lost Highway had in their bag of tricks. Don't forget , the professional look of your product relates directly to sales, don't fumble the ball here.
Oh, is it Sunday, already? Time sure goes fast when yer havin' fun. Dick Brown (Banjo and Baritone Harmony singer), gets a real work out today. He's been off on a business trip and just got back to LA. The banjo over dub tracks went down first and Dick was really picky about what he would allow to be kept of his playing. By suppertime the banjo tracks were all done and it was time for the finishing touches of Harmony parts.
Sharon has a slightly higher pitch range than the guys in Lost Highway, so they had to do a little shuffling. I even got to run the board while Eric himself went into the soundproof room to cut the high girls harmony part. He sailed through it with only a few hitches. A couple of the songs were determined to be out of reach and Sharon wound up doing her own harmony singing, on top of the lead work she had done previously. Ain't electronics wonderful?
Monday - Eric had a full day doing the lead guitar work, and the lead mandolin work on the tape and told us we wouldn't be needed. Ok, we can take a hint. We did a one-day trip up north of Bakersfield to Sequoia National Park. We'd always wanted to see those giant trees. Somewhere in the back of our minds was tape flowing over the recording heads, though. We had fun, anyway.
Tuesday - Well, it's about done. Just a few finishing touches. We listened to the thing for the umpteenth time and marked the spots where we thought it needed just a little something here and there. Eric would grab a guitar or mandolin and patch in a little line fill here and a full chord there. Dang this thing is sounding good.
Wait a minute, we forgot somethin'. Oh yeah, the bass singing parts. 'Hey Ray.' Oh man, here we go...into the little room I go, put on the headphones and try real hard to not blow my little easy contribution to the project. You knew I'd do it, didn't ya? Yup, I completely forgot the third line to a chorus I've sung hundreds of times. After all this preaching, and watching and giggling over other people's little mistakes, I blew it completely... RETAKE... I got her that time!
While I was doing my two songs, Sharon and Eric were talking in the control room, and I couldn't hear em. Dang it. 'Ahhhhh, Ray, how about doing the' bass parts on one more song?' I thought I was all done and finished and they spring another one on me. What the' heck, let's do it. I can't do more than mess it up. I didn't, though. The thing is in the can.
With just a little more clean up, here and there, all that is left is the mix down and mastering to CD-R process. From the CD-R the manufacturing company will manufacture all the CD's and tapes, print the inserts, box all these together, shrink wrap 'em and send 'em to us. After writing three checks, Eric Uglum, Ericka Records and Dave Zierenburg, we bid all good night and headed for bed.
Wednesday morning we started home for Missouri. I just knew that while we were out there, they would surely have one of those earthquake things. They didn't though. It didn't happen until about 3:30 that afternoon. About the time we were going through Flagstaff, Arizona. Dang it. I missed all the excitement... 3.5 on the Richter Scale.