Back in September or so I had an idea to do an album of all the songs my dad used to do when he was playing guitar and we were just kids. My mom always had records going in the house, and my dad's playing and singing obviously had an influence on my getting into "the business". It was his guitar I started with, and I used his old guitar lesson books to start figuring it all out. I thought a record of me doing his old songs would be a nice "Thank you", and my mom would probably like it, too.
He started playing during the big 60's Folk Revival, and was into guys like The Kingston Trio, The Limelighters, Peter, Paul and Mary, and such. It seemed like an easy thing to do at the time -- there were 3 or 4 obvious songs, and I didn't think it would be hard to come up with enough tunes to fill an album. And since most of 'em were, supposedly, Folk Songs, it seemed like it would be easy enough to learn 'em...
But, I unexpectedly stalled out pretty early on the song list, so I asked my brother and sister, who remembered the bands involved, but not many more songs than I'd already thought of (except my sister came up with "Moon River", which I'd never have remembered). Dad's old friends Bill and Mary Jane weren't much help, either, apparently they weren't hanging out during the guitar-playing period.
Lacking a certified list (and not wanting to spoil the surprise by asking my mom), I had to rely on memory, and it was a little confusing 'cuz there were songs that I remember from my youth, but can't really place if I know the song because my dad played it on guitar, or because my mom played the record a lot. Some were obvious, and I could "hear" my dad's voice singing several of them in my head, but others -- not so much.
Anyway, once I had a list, I had to come up with the chords and work up some arrangements. That was generally pretty easy, but "Moon River" can be pretty elaborate, but I wanted to go back to the original simple style. I found several different chord sets for it, and kind of mashed 'em together, and whittled it down to a simple-sounding setup. "Lemon Tree" is a lot harder than it sounds, especially since it goes pretty quick. I came up with a cool way to play "Four Strong Winds", with Drop-D tuning, capo 2, so it works with Travis picking. Like on the Christmas CD, I overtracked some lead guitar on some of 'em, even though I don't really know how. Fortunately, I could edit together little pieces of almost-right takes into one whole-sounding solo. Don't tell anybody.
My dad and I went through his old song book after I'd given him the CD, and although there were lots of songs in there, I didn't find any that I remembered him playing (or even remembered at all), *except* "Today" (...while the blossoms still cling to the vine...), which I can totally hear him singing. I may have to record that one when I get a chance, and burn a Version 2 of the CD with that one added -- even though it's yet another slow song, in three, with the old "1, 6m, 2m, 5" chord progression; same as "Try to Remember" that's already on this CD (and a million others that aren't). Since I sound the same on every track already, it's pretty hard to figure out a way to get these almost-same songs to sound different than each other. But I'll think of something...
Anyway, I really liked playing some of those old songs, and there's nothing like just doing it to learn more about the whole recording process. And, I think it turned out pretty well, even if it was a lot of work for an audience of two.
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