The daily posts from RootBall Studio seemed like a good idea.    But studio days, like days on Mars, aren’t really the same as Earth days.   So I haven’t been coming through on the schedule of what I set out to do, posting  ‘daily’ and letting interested folks know what was happening here.

Sorry bout that.

In any event, it appears that maybe I’m finished with singing into this fifty year old Neauman 47 microphone out here in Austin, Texas.   (The mic came from RCA Studios in New York.)

And Mr. M has now spread on guitar tracks from about ten instruments, plus sonic keys, and almost choir-like harmonies.

There’s still a lot of work to be none.  Little of which I will be directly involved with.   And I am reticent/hesitant to talk about what more is gonna happen cause you never know what’s gonna happen when you are making a record.  And if you do…it’s probably not a very cool record.

Yes, Mr. M operates by one steady and overriding principle when he is producing a record:  he wants every song “to sound really co-ool.”

Cool is one of them things you can’t buy off the rack, download, or import.  What’s  cool over there ain’t always cool over here.   And just beyond the edge of cool, cool disappears like a damn vapor trail, and becomes really UN-cool.  Those who try to be cool and fail, generally come off as trying to be cute.  And that’s just…not cool.

At this very moment Mr. M is about to lay down some steel guitar tracks.  The Emmons steel guitar he is using, he has had since 1974.  It has sung with all the great songwriters that Mr. has worked with over the years, in studio and on stage.     Lucinda, Townes, Robert Earl, Ray Wylie, Mary Gauthier, Slaid Cleaves, Doug Sahm, and so many others.   And today it is helping sing my songs.

For me, who four years ago this month hopped in a small boat Nicaraguan panga and pulled away from Little Corn Island,  (and never looked back),  it’s all—well, it’s all just pretty damn
co-ool.

I WAS HERE

and Gurf Morlix was producing and playing guitar…
and Rick Richards was playing drums…
and that it had been almost three years ago to the day when I moved back to the US from Nicaragua and ‘discovered’ these guys…
heard these sounds and rhythms they were putting on these records they were making for people like Lucinda Williams and Ray Wiley Hubbard and Robert Earl Keen and Mary Gauthier and Slaid Cleaves…
and how I was just  totally blown away and how I had started wondering what it would be like to make a  record with those guysand now…here I am.

I was going to tell you how all that felt but it’s just too much.

I’m just all blown away.

More later.

Wow.

Welcome to Texas!!

Came here with fourteen songs I had selected for consideration for “Okra and Ecclesiastes.”

 I played them for Mr. M. 

We worked on things like intros and outtros, leads and tempos.    After about four hours we knocked two songs off the list,   “Pole Dancing to Gospel Hymns,”  and   “Purple Felt Sack.”

The twelve we have now are:

My People Come From The Dirt
Cowboy Gothic
That Kinda Woman
PowerLines
Empty Cup      (co-written with Gurf Morlix)
It’ll Never Be Love Again
Elisabeth
Down Here In The County
Lethal Injection Blues
John L. and Helen
Last Great Buffalo Hunt
High Fructose Corn Syrup

 On day 2, the drummer, Rick Richards, will come in and we’ll start laying down rhythm tracks.  

So far…so good.

Rocky was doing some pro bono funeral work for a man (I will need to leave him nameless) from Mississippi who had passed away in Crawfordville, essentially homeless, no family, no friends. In dealing with the man’s personal effects, Rocky had seen that the guy was a prolific poet and songwriter. He was impressed and moved by his devotion to his art and craft, and the all-to-apparent vow of poverty that it had entailed. Rocky wanted to do something special for this guy, and called me to see if I would sing a song or two at his service, knowing that it would probably just be me and nobody else there. He sent me a poem the guy had written called, “The Maiden.” (There was a wonderful play on the words ‘made-of’ and ‘made-by’ and ‘made-in.’) I was genuinely touched. I knew in my bones that my own artistic path could be headed in the very direction this poor fellow’s had led him. I told Rocky I would be honored to sing at the burial.

The directions to the little paupers cemetery in SW Wakulla County were sketchy. I was running a bit late, got very lost, then got some really bad directions at a house trailer from a toothless woman with a yard full of chickens. By the time I got where I was going, the people from the funeral home evidently had left already. Only the backhoe crew was there, and they were eating lunch. I felt badly, apologized for being late, then immediately went to the graveside and looked down.

The cement vault lid was in place. I didn’t know what else to do, so I broke out my guitar, slung the strap over my back and began singing my songs to this man, this poet, whom I had never in my life met.

The workers put down their lunches and began to gather around. I played my heart and soul out for this man who had died alone, with no family or friends. I played like I’ve never played before. And when I thought I was through, the words and melody to “Amazing Grace” somehow entered my consciousness, and I played it with more passion and conviction than any song I had ever sung in my life. And as I played, the workers began to weep. They wept, I wept; we all wept together.

When I finished I packed up my guitar and ambled, sweat-drenched, to my car. Though my heart was heavy, I felt an enormous sense of satisfaction through the connection I had made to the spirit of a fellow artist. As I opened the car door, one of the workers came up to me, tears still streaming down his cheeks. “Man, I just wanted to tell you,” he said.  ”I never seen nothin’ like what I just seen today.   I’ve been putting in these damn septic tanks for over twenty years.”