New Band Photos

We had some new pictures taken and I've redone the web site to show you the WHOLE band. Click here to see the image! More pictures to follow after the Globe Gig!

Day one results

Well, a few very productive hours in the studio today. All the guitar parts for:

Stranger Blues
Hole in my soul
Long way Home
Bound to ride that train
one foot in front
solitary blues

are done. Some harp, singing and percussion and these are all finished! Going to take a break from this for a bit, though. Need to spend a little time editing the lyrics to these songs so they're really sharp.

Recording Tomorrow!

Hey y'all

Work on the long-promised solo CD resumes tomorrow (Thursday) when I take that old National of mine into the Musical Vision Studio here in Aberdeen. I've made a list of the songs that need to be recorded and it's grown really long, but since tomorrow is the first day in this studio I imagine we'll try for getting three complete songs down and be sure to really get a feel for the place. But, if it goes well, there'll be a whole bunch of stuff coming out this year.

As a surprise, I'll be taking my new Stella guitar with me as well- it's an old, cheap plywood guitar that Billy Allardyce found on Ebay. It's got a classic sound for the old-school blues, it's something about the plywood top and old dirt from some grandmother's attic. No matter, I've got a tune or two for it, and if we're rolling tomorrow it'll get it's air time!

Really, there's no way to release all this music on CD, there's just too much of it, so I'm looking into the option of taking bunches of it straight to digital distribution. Tunes, Tune Tribe and a couple of other outlets and by-pass the CD process completely. Some will probably end up as free downloads on MySpace too.

OK, I'll check in tomorrow night, let you know how it all turned out. In the meantime, happy Valentine's Day!

Son

back in the studio

Well, it had to happen!

Starting Thursday I'll be back in the studio for some more recording, but this time I'll be finishing up that solo disk I've been working on forever. It's going to be an interesting mix of some tunes on the National, a bunch of acoustic and electric lap steel and some songs on the straight guitar. I'm anticipating that the songs will stand by themselves without the need for over-dubbed parts, but in all honesty being in the studio is like having a really big box of crayons to play with- might be hard to avoid the temptation to fill things out a bit. There's one or two songs that would really benefit from a little bass and drums too, so we'll see.

We've started the 'organization' process- slicing up the material that I want to record into easy to manage groups. For example, recording all the songs on the national in one pass (even though they won't end up on the disk like that), preening the guitar parts and the lyrics and generally making sure that the first set of songs are ready to be put under the microscope. It's an interesting process, and truthfully, sometimes these songs just don't measure up. Needless to say we'll record more than will appear on the final disk.

So, fingers crossed! I'll let you know how this goes....

Horns?

It's true.


We've added Ken Shorten on trumpet and David Hair on misc. saxophones. They've both got years of experience and can play their backsides off. They really make the sound of this band bigger than I'd ever believed possible!

Not sure when the first gig wil be, we're scrambling to get tunes together. Could be as early as the end of next month....

on the fine are of kicking ass....

What a great band I've got. It's not every night that you open for Jimi Hendrix. I mean,even if it's a tribute band, the crowd expectations are really high and not a lot of people go to see the support act. It's like being the dishwasher or something.

But with nothing to loose, these guys just corked one off. Amazing. Crowd of people pressed to the edge of the stage, digging it. Wow. Awesome all the way around.

I'm obviously wiped out, it's late and I need to crash. So rather than babble on incoherently, let's just leave it at this. Way to go guys!

Don't believe it's a small world?

Then you need to get to a Lemon Tree gig somewhere. Because there you can hear an Alaskan guitarist, mixed by a lassie from Scotland, and sit at the same table with a painter born in Bethel Alaska, a few folks from Shetland Islands, a Scottish Lap-steel maker and an assortment of folks from England and France.

Home Page Updates!

Well, I'm not a web developer, but sometimes I sure feel more like a web guy than a guitar player. But, all griping aside, I did some updates to my homepage at www.sonhenry.com.

Schedule page, recordings, news- lots of new stuff to crow on about. Take a look!

Burnley National Blues Festival

The brochure is out, take a look!

Click here

Supporting Hendrix and Rob Tognoni

Check it out- Saturday February 3rd at the Lemon Tree supporting the Hendrix tribute band, and the following Sunday afternoon opening for Rob Tognoni. Going to be a busy weekend!

http://www.lemontree.org for advanced tickets to the hendrix show!

See ya!

Glad I don't need to worry about hitting anything this big on the way home from a gig, but I must admit that this picture makes me more thana little homesick. Look at all that snow! Great ski season right now...

New Myspace Page

Well, we've finally taken the plunge and joined everyone at myspace. I'll be putting video and mp3's there, and making some unreleased stuff available for download. Here's the URL:

www.myspace.com/sonhenry

Stop by and have a look and a listen! Grab what you like and please spread the word.

See you soon, somewhere!

Live Recording, Globe Inn, March 29

Just a quick heads up- I've made arrangements to record the band live at our gig at the Globe Inn in Aberdeen. We'll be ready and primed for the gig at the Burnley festival, so it seems like a logical time to do a little extra recording! Not sure that we'll do any more than mix it up and throw it out on myspace.

Oh, if you don't have the link, here's how you get to our myspace page:

http://www.myspace.com/sonhenry

Go check it out, because we need a few friends!

Burnley National Blues Festival, April 6th

This is so cool! We'll be on the main stage at the Burnley National Blues Festival on Friday, April 6th. Here's the URL to the festival site:

http://www.burnleymechanics.co.uk/blues.php

Expect a great show, get seats down front. The guys and I are really primed for this one!

Old Friends, best friends

A quick shot of an old favorite guitar getting some stage time at a recent gig!

Happy 2007!

nuff said.

Twas the night before Christmas......

Twas the night before christmas
and all through the house
the band was getting restless
there was no bass player about

and so in my leather jacket
and backwards beret
I put on my shoes
and went looking for Dave

then out from the street
there arose such a racket
that the cigarettes fell
out of my jacket

and looking through the window
of a rusty old van
who should I spy
but the long lost bass man

locked in the van
along with the keys
was davey the bass player
and 8 bottles of beer

when finally with a coat hanger
we did get him out
he jumped into the night air
and stumbled about

at the top of his lungs
full of good christmas cheer
"Happy Crishmash to all,
And Nappy Hew Near"

But from down the street
we did hear the yell
of punters, "play freebird"
oh bloddy hell.......

last gig of the year tonight

Cafe Drummonds, Aberdeen. Band on at 9:30

Great year, hard to believe that it's over already. Openers for Tam White, Blue Lisa, Ray Bonneville, Mem Shannon and gigs from Estonia to Alaska and all points in between. A new CD, and some great reviews and a live CD off to duplication. A youtube video that drew praise from some heavyweights in the steelguitar world. An awesome year. So how do you wrap it up? Gotta get to Drummonds tonight and find out....

Next year? A new live CD, a new band cd in the studio and a solo cd. And the life of a road dog, have lap steel will travel!

See you tonight, and happy, safe holidays to all. Thanks for your friendship and support.

and while we're at it.....

If you haven't read it yet, jump down t the previous post or this won't make a lick of sense.....

The real trick is going to be making this an integated whole, between the band and the solo gigs, no? It's going to be one thing to havethe solo gigs veer off in a new and interesting direction (not to mention a portable one too- can you imagine taking 5 guitars on a train?). But, to some extent this needs to fit well with the band too. Here's why-

First, the original songs need to be, to some extent, portable between both gigs. Otherwise, don't you run into a radical conflict, where a listener's expectations are far from being met- it seems like a big jump from raw, delta blues to lap-steel hendrix covers, no? Does it matter?

Second, the songwriter is happier if he's got a consistent target to write for, otherwise songs just stay in the books and never get a chance to tell their story on the stage.

And so, I'm open to feedback here- how important is it to have a performer present a consistent set of material from gig to gig? And by this I don't mean playing the same familiar songs the same way every night, but rather that everything seems to hang together. Or do you prefer to be surprised by what can creep into a set list on any given night?

I have my bias here. But I always like to hear from you guys. My email is at the top of the page here, so if you feel inclined, I'd welcome the feedback (as long as it's not a pitch to sell me Viagra or a Nigerian email scam), and I won't put you on a junk mail list.


OK, off to spend some time at the piano. Be well!

finding a new voice.....

Every once in a while a gig opens your eyes to new possibilities, and helps you find a new voice. It's as though the dynamics of the room, the acoustics and the personalties of the audience all lead you towards an answer or a change that you've been working towards. And SNAP, everything is in place.

Here's the dilemna- The National works fine in a sit-down cafe, but not in a pub. And, I've been feeling a little removed from the music, in the sense that these old songs have gone back to being someone elses's stories. So, last night at Satchmo's in Dundee I had a bar stool all to myself on the stage, and Leon Hunter was kind enough to let me experiment. And experiment I did, I took 5 guitars to the club and just played.

It turns out that the night just gelled with an old Jesse Mae Hemphill song, that set in motion a string of old Mississippi Hill Country style songs. Some RL Burnside and other stuff played with that vibe. And instantly the room went from one of ignoring the background music to dancing or shuffling in place, moving close to the stage and sitting there listening and throwing out song ideas. So, there was some James Taylor played on an electrified slide guitar at full volume. and other odd stuff, but somehow it all worked. And the original songs I've been wrestling with, lots of them just fit the bill.

I had a long drive home last night in the wee hours of the morning, and I was still zipping from the aftermath (it's 11 am the next day now) while I was prying my eyelids open with coffee this morning. I love it when the doors open like this, because most of the time it's not very subtle and is what one of those large bank vault doors opening must sound like.

Oh, about the 5 guitars? I only need two from here on out, and a very cheesy, very small amplifier to make it all work. Phew, I'm back to being portable again which is a comfort because moving FIVE guitars for a solo gig is a little over the top. But we did answer the question.

And for Dave and Mario who will want to know what happens to all the old delta stuff, it'll still be there guys, we're just going to transmogrify it a bit and make it a little more relevant to the life of a working-class guitar player with 4 kids living in the 21st century. Add volume and presto.....