After a late summer break, I’m back at it. It’s not like I’ve been sleeping on the couch or anything like that. I’ve been playing outside and up here in my studio working on more video song stories. I do my best to put in a full day’s work but they say I’m retired. Hardley. I’ve made my way through life as an artist and I’ve been told artists don’t ever retire. I believe it’s true. If you love something enough you just can’t stop doing it.
This week’s post involves a song, most of which was recorded up here in my studio. Michael had put down a bass and drum part and we had a basic song about falling out of love. An impossibility as far as I could see but I understood it does happen. One evening I was playing the track, which at this point was all drum machines and synthesizers. As often happens, I let the track keep rolling with just the drums playing. For some unknown reason, I stuck a note on my synthesizer to a sitar kind of sound called “Bambutti Dawn.” Cool, I thought and reached for my banjo. I began frailing away, and out of nowhere a lyric came to me about asking a girl to “dance with me on the beach tonight.” I have no idea where it came from unless I found the topic of “falling out of love” somehow distasteful.
When Michael showed up the next day to work on the recording I played the words and music I had come up with the night before. He said, “cool, let’s add that to the song.” We did and now I have a music video to go along with it. Inspiration that led to lyrics and finally a song, now with images to further explain the feelings of the heart that started the whole thing. Wow. For an artist, this is a gift that didn’t exist when I started my career.
I am thrilled to now be connected, online, to a community of artists from roughly 120 different countries. This project is comprised of beautiful shots done by filmmaker Francisco Fonseca who is based in Guadalajara, Mexico. I absolutely love his vision, his subjects, and his actresses and models. However, if you ask a young guy for shots of a girl on the beach you are going to get bikinis. In fact, mostly bikinis or something else somewhat revealing. And that is what I got. When I finished the project I started to get a little twitchy. “I sure don’t want people thinking I sit around all day looking at videos of pretty girls in bikinis. So I showed it to Jan and my daughter-in-law Ashley. I think they thought I was silly and just being paranoid and gave it a thumbs up. It passed muster with the ladies, so here it is.
A final word of warning to the fellows. If you have a lady, treat her right! She probably has lots of girlfriends and they probably have lots of beer. So your competition might not be the muscle-bound guy checking your girl out on the beach. It may be her girlfriends telling her to dump you on the sand and join them for a cold one…just sayin’. When I was young and foolish it happened to me a lot.
As an added bonus that is Kansas City musical legend, Roger Workman playing pedal steel guitar. Anyone who remembers “White Eyes” or “Camp Harlow” knows Roger’s work and I’m sure loves his playing as much as Brewer and Shipley do. If a song needs pedal steel, Roger is the one who gets a call. I hope you like it.
James Hungerford
Hey guys, thanks for sharing. Nice words about my close friend Roger Workman. I met him and the Jolly Bros. here in Denver when they played out here in the early 80’s. My wife and I got really close to the band, and they stayed at our house while they were in town. Don’t think that we’re groupies, we just enjoyed their performances so much. My wife passed almost 11 years ago, and Roger and Norman came in to play at the service, very special to my family. We saw you play at Greg Camp’s service. If you guys ever play out here, and need a place to stay in the Denver area you’re more than welcome. I have a lot of room, just ask Roger!
Butch Dillon
He deserves all the praise he get’s from us that have played with him and those who have enjoyed it from the crowd……………b.d.
Butch Dillon
He’s the “Pro from Dover.”