STUDIO NEWSJanuary 2012To paraphrase Garrison Keilor, it's been a busy year at Imaginary Road Studios.
KATHRYN and I have two projects that we're discussing for the future. I met with Monte Lipman, the President of Universal Records, to discuss one of these on the day the earthquake hit New York City and the entire Eastern US. I later met with Jim Roppo in marketing at Universal who Monte introduced me to. Kathryn and I are in frequent contact about this year's project which will be a seasonal recording. As always I look forward to working with Kathryn. Expect to hear other sides of Kathryn's talents as an organist and singer in the near future.
We had the pleasure of working with Paul McCartney and Elton John's drummer, Steve Holley, our good friend Tony Levin just back from a Peter Gabriel tour of Europe played bass, Pat Metheny's percussionist Jeff Hayes added some brilliant work and 4 time Grammy Award winning cellist Eugene Friesen, violinist Charlie Bisharat, English horn player Jill Haley and vocalist Noah Wilding added their parts. Rory Sullivan, whose singer/ songwriter project (Here All Along) I produced years ago came in and did some beautiful backup vocal work. Pianist ANN SWEETEN and I have now worked together on three album projects which we have co-produced; GREY SKY AND BITTERSWEET, JUST THIS SIDE OF SPRING and now IN THE WAKE. Tom Eaton engineered, mixed and mastered the recording and Ann was incredibly productive, nailing the piano pieces in two days in June .. really astounding ! The overdubs were recorded in September with Trisha Craig on flute, Akane Setiawan on double reeds, Andrew Eng on violin and viola, Liz Ehrman on cello and my doing a couple of guitar parts. I'm proud to have been a part of another recording with Ann.
At the same time we recorded the follow-up to BLUE DREAM which I produced for Fiona in 2008 and which won a stack of awards including ALBUM OF THE YEAR at the NAR / ZONE awards… a great honor. The album will be entitled 600 YEARS and will be released in a year or so. It was a challenging and sobering goal to better the magnificent achievement of BLUE DREAM, but I'm confident we managed to do so and I know Fiona feels that to be true. You will be hearing much more about 600 YEARS before long.
This is a lovely, passionate recording with a cast of brilliant musicians including violin virtuoso Charlie Bisharat, Edo Castro on bass, percussionist Jeff Haynes (Pat Metheny) and Denny Fongheiser, pianist Monica Pasqual, cellist Betsy Tinney, our favorite horn player, Jeff Oster, on Fluglehorn, wind synth by Premik Russell Tubbs and vocals by our own Noah Wilding. We're all very proud of this beautiful recording. We're just days away from finishing the new recording by guitarist TODD BOSTON which is a very exciting project. On TOUCHED BY THE SUN, Todd plays acoustic guitar, electric guitar, slide guitar, wooden flutes, bass and dotar, an Indian instrument that he studied with the master Ali Akbar Kahn. We will be telling you a lot more about this recording soon. DEAN BOLAND 's debut piano recording was recorded this year by Tom Eaton who also mixed and mastered the project. I expect to see the finished CD any day now and will post more information about it as soon as that happens. LYNN YEW EVERS, a pianist from Malaysia now living in Eastern Washington State, has finished her CD as well. This too is a project I've produced and Tom engineered, mixed and mastered. We continue to work with BRAD SCHUMANN on his singer/ songwriter project and just did a session with guitarist Jeff Pevar (Crosby Stills and Nash, Ray Charles, Marc Cohen) who added brilliant layers to the already stunning songs. Brad was here in the late summer working with Tom Eaton and myself and Brad, who was a carpenter with my in California when we were in our 20s, built a new woodshed with me in trade for some of his mix time. NOA BURSIE was in for a couple of days this summer working on her singer/ song writer project and we look forward to having her back here soon. We have recently begun new projects with pianist REBECCA HARROLD-DASILVA, and guitarist KEN VERHEECKE. Both Rebecca and Ken will be working with world-famous bassist Tony Levin and percussionist Jeff Haynes this week. KORI LINAE CAROTHERS will be coming back to Imaginary Road to record a new project with Tom Eaton and myself in April and I've heard from SHAMBHU and LAWRENCE BLATT about they're doing recording again with us this year. www.koritunes.com New names on the horizon include pianists DAVE KYDD, JIM GABRIEL and LOUIS COLAIANNA. Pianist / vocalist JOAN SPEAR is also talking about a project with us. |
The fourth project I have produced for pianist STANTON LANIER, A THOUSAND YEARS was released this year. Stanton and I have been working together since 2004 and it's become a great friendship. I recently shared the stage with Stanton at a lovely Christmas concert in Atlanta which gave me a chance to visit with his family and meet a lot of friends who came out for the concert. Stanton was absolutely brilliant. A THOUSAND YEARS borrows from themes written by the masters for centuries, but expanded upon beautifully by Stanton and is another brilliant piece of work. Stanton performed most of the recordings by himself, though Noah Wilding, Jill Haley and I added tracks as well. Stanton's previous recording won a ZONE award for Best Holiday Album and we expect that A THOUSAND YEARS will be recognized by the awards this year as well.
Singer/ songwriter BROOKE RAMEL released a new CD that she and I produced entitled FOR YOU. Brooke has been on the scene for years and has reached so many people with her songs. We began at Imaginary Road in the fall of '10, but moved some of the production to her hometown of LA where she could be closer to family. FOR YOU features brilliant musicians wall to wall. Tony Levin (John Lennon, Peter Gabriel, Paul Simon) on bass, Aaron Sterling who's recently been recording with John Mayer on drums, Jeff Pevar (Crosby, Stills & Nash, Ray Charles, Marc Cohen) did a lot of guitar work with Brooke doing much of her own playing. The Webb Sisters who tour and record with Leonard Cohen and Sting added some brilliant vocal work and Eugene Friesen's cello graced the recording as well. This is a lovely collection of wonderfully touching songs and I loved working with Brooke in making it.
Pianist KATHRYN KAYE released her second recording with me, HEAVY AS A FEATHER in 2011. Her DREAMING STILL CD went to # 1 on the ZONE radio charts and just moved in and stayed there for a long long time. HEAVY AS A FEATHER features more of her compositions and features world-famous bassist Tony Levin, four time Grammy winner, cellist Eugene Friesen, Jill Haley on English horn, Charlie Bisharat on violin, renowned bassist Michael Manring and a track from percussionist Ramesh Kannan… and some guy named Will Ackerman played some guitar too.
Tom Eaton, Imaginary Road's resident engineer, recorded HEAVY AS A FEATHER on our Steinway B and mixed the project with me. Tom also contributed a really haunting accordion part for one of the pieces.
LARRY BROWN is a singer / songwriter / guitarist who has traveled around the country as a touring performer for years… he's also spent a lot of time working, recording and teaching in Nashville. Larry started his project in January of '11 and we finished the mixes with Tom in August. His CD STORIES THAT WE WROTE was released just before Christmas. Larry is a brilliant songwriter with lyrics anyone would kill for and a voice with the wisdom of miles and miles on the tires. Comprised mostly of original compositions, STORES THAT WE WROTE also features Townes Van Zandt's Tecumseh Valley, Gerry Rafferty's Whatever's written in Your Heart, Dylan's I Shall be Released and a beautiful instrumental version of Danny Boy.
Tom Eaton engineered, mixed and mastered the recording and played organ, accordion and did some percussion.
Just in time for Christmas, FIONA JOY HAWKINS released CHRISTMAS JOY which I mentioned in my last studio notes. In November of 2010 Corin and I traveled to Australia where we recorded two projects with Fiona on a Stewart and Sons piano at the workplace of the piano builder, Wayne Stewart. The piano was lovely and provided a unique sound for Corin and I to work with. CHRISTMAS JOY was produced by Fiona and Corin with me overseeing the recording of the basic piano parts and many of the overdubs.
Guitarist RONNDA CADLE has finished her CD entitled WILL'S EMBRACE.