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NEW ALBUM: STAR TIME

About

“STAR TIME” SONG BIOS

1. My Baby Put Me on the Shelf

Long ago, I had a patient who sometimes had his wife accompany him to his appointments, always giving him the major stink-eye. He would regularly plead with me “Doctor, can you please convince her that I love her more than life itself…” Every time, the same song, the same way, and the only thing it ever seemed to accomplish was to change her expression to eye-rolling. That clichéd line stayed with me over the years and always brought a smile to my face, so tweaking it a bit wherein she would get sick of the whole affair and actually dump him (that never happened), was a fun exercise in coming up with still more hackneyed love lines for a song.

 

2. In a Post-Apocalyptic World (Would You Be My Girl)

Sometimes I write songs when I’m not trying to write a song. When pandemic era real estate prices were at their zenith, my wife and I sold our Nashville home and bought our dream house in Thomasville, GA, with a big yard and a pool. I was working in the back, pulling vines out of the tall Japanese Cheesewood hedge. I had that “this is too good to be true feeling”, and in my head I’m singing, ‘Have you heard the news today? Troubles are here, and more is on the way’. I yanked at more vines. ‘In a post-apocalyptic world, would you be my girl?’. I tugged at a really tough vine, and my shoulder was starting to hurt. ‘Love will matter more than ever’. I went inside and put the song down.

 

3. Ready To Go

I wanted to write a bluesy rock song with a heavy beat and lyrics people could shout out on the party buses in Nashville or before the 4th quarter at the football stadium. Rich came up with some great guitar lines. Kevin says it ought to be the new Monday Night Football theme song. We can dream, right?

4. Chanty

As a huge fan of old-time sanctified gospel musicians like Dorothy Love Coates, Cleophus Robinson, James Cleveland, Blind Willie Johnson and the Sensational Nightingales, the call-and-response style found in gospel as well as in all manner of work songs is something I love. Ironically, driving in to work during my commute I would fall into snatches of “pull boys, put your backs into it, pull boys, pull against the tide” almost like I was rowing a Viking ship instead of driving my car. One day, Lincoln’s “better angels” popped into my head as the perfect incentive for working so hard. Steve perfectly captured my vision with his killer arrangement. 
 

5. I Tried Like Heck

I’ve always found the word “heck” funny. A coach talks about his team “working like heck,” and I smile a little. That’s where the title came from. Kevin added the “til I lost all self-respect” line. I like our Everly Bros-style singing in the 3rd verse.

6. (I’m Not Your) Artifact

In New Orleans for a show, I ran into an old flame and while driving home after, I mused to myself “I’m not just some artifact… I’m not some French Quarter bric-a-brac…” and the seed of a song was planted. Weeks, months later, the idea of “Naw, I wanna be your Cadillac… and drive you crazy!” found its way into my thoughts. Again, Steve came to my rescue with another brill set of chords while I sang it out and beat on the table. Ray’s bad-ass drumming powers the thing and reflects my own angst.

7. Back Around

I don’t know if Generation Z can relate, but before we had smart phones,  music clubs and bars were the primary way many people stayed socially connected. Sometimes you couldn’t find anyone you knew, and that’s a desolate, lonely feeling.

8. Gone

The Blues saved me in High School and early-on in college. Hearing the music and studying about the lives of the great blues men was amazing and inspiring and learning about all the discrimination and “low-down mean mistreatment” they suffered fueled the sense of righteous outrage that youth demands. Guided by some of the first “white animals” – John Mayall and Canned Heat to name two powerful influencers, I came to deeply love this music and remain indebted to all the Chess Records reissues of Muddy and Wolf and the rest. The song idea came from a line in Boogie Man, the John Lee Hooker biography where he says something like “but I couldn’t make her love me back…” I loved that idea and fooled around with various permutations playing slide guitar. “Gone” evolved lyrically because it fit so well with the slide. Once again, Steve Genius to the rescue as he took my raggedy slide demo and tightened it up masterfully. The killer groove is courtesy of Rich and “Sugar” Ray, both former stars in Nashville’s Double Trouble Blues Band.

 

9. When It All Came Down

In the wake of writing sessions for our “red” Monster Mash Message CD,  I had been playing around with the fun possibilities of the open Dm chord. Well before the pandemic, there were all sorts of apocalyptic themes swirling around our world: too many people, not enough water, global warming, polar ice caps melting, oceans dying, nuclear warfare, the decline of civility, and so forth. I conceived of the song as the aftermath of a huge disaster, perceived as if it were titled “Ummm… sorry, God was busy doing some other stuff…” Stevo wrote the middle eight. Hey! We’re a team.

10. The Game
It’s true what they say: “Some people will believe almost anything." “The  Game” is a song about modern cult leaders.

11. Unlucky In Love

I wasn’t in Nashville 3 months before the “drinking, fussing, fighting, till push comes to shove… say it, say it, say it I’m unlucky in love…” came into my head, likely in rhythm with my walking to work every day at Vanderbilt Hospital. It’s in the ether of Music City, USA I suspect. Over the years I played around with it in my head: wife number 4 (I almost married a whore), wife number 5 (old boyfriend skinned me alive) and so forth before finally buckling down to finish it for this project. That’s the absolute coolest, funnest part about writing songs – as a music lover, when you just know you’re on to something good, like with Big Shot or Not Another Love Song, you’re the only person in the whole world who’s hearing this new song!

 

12. Man of Constant DREAD

I suspect it was Steve (of course) who pushed for us to do this traditional song live. Originally titled “Farewell Song” it is over 100 years old, and lent itself perfectly to our Dread Beat swirl of psychedelic swamp guts, pounding drums, angel harmonies, and guitars, guitars, guitars. In my mind, it is the Rich Parks dream showcase, as he laid down multiple tracks that display his incredible virtuosity and taste, including a tribute track to the late Andy Gill, the greatest guitarist who people too often forget about. Steve and I spent hours layering his guitars and other elements of this track and it is simply the best musical creation I’ve ever been a direct part of… so far!

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