Two years ago, Scott Birney and Jeff Bove decided it was time to write some new songs together and work up an acoustic project. And compose they did. Over a period of a year they wrote a series of tunes ranging from rock songs, High Definition and Heros of the Blues, to beautiful folk songs such as Gone Like a Song, Sky Full of Tears and Lost and Found. They also wrote the country ballad, Immigrant Train. And Jeff wrote the all instrumental called the Minuet. Scott and Jeff also wanted to record for the very first time their sea chant, the very Celtic song, O’Shanty, and they wanted to create new recorded versions of their songs, Later Days, Old Grey Coat and If and When. Jeff decided to add the never before recorded country song, Time’s A Wastin, and he added new versions of his standards, Let Time Take It’s Turn, Changing Places, and an incredible electric blues version of Acid Rain. They topped off the project with a rendition of the cover, by permission of Country Joe McDonald (of Country Joe and the Fish), of the blues classic Rock Coast Blues. Unlike his previous work, Jeff wrote the music to many of these songs on the piano, with Scott supplying the lyrics.
After writing the songs, Jeff started work with David Poland adding violin parts to acoustic guitar and piano parts, a theme that pervades the project. Jeff then contacted an old friend, Lindsay Lee, to help round out the artists. Lindsay played all the piano on a grand piano brought into the studio and later played some electric piano. Tom Alderson was called upon to add acoustic bass parts and later added his signature acoustic and electric guitar parts. Lindsay suggested that his daughter, KatLee, be given a tryout on vocals. Kat blew Jeff and Scott away with her talent and approach to the songs, not to mention her incredible harmonization with Lindsay, a rare father/daughter singing combination.
To top things off, the tracks were all initially cut on an analog multitrack machine (with Jeff engineering), giving the sound that rich full analog presence and texture. The songs sounded fantastic so Jeff decided they needed to add percussion and drums, and they needed more tracks. In came Pro Tools and everything associated with it. And in came Dave Lee with drums and his Pro Tools engineering experience. The music held together rhythmically despite being cut with no click track. Dave made it happen. Jeff’s experiment seemed like it was going to work.
They did cut High Definition and Acid Rain with a live rhythm section and brought in old friend and bassist, Randy Coleman, from Nashville. They recorded these tracks over a Labor Day weekend. Meanwhile, Jeff had solicited the help of renown producer and engineer, Fabrice (Fab) Dupont, to master the project. Fab provided technical suggestions to Jeff, Dave and Lindsay on how best to mix the project. And technical advice on the studio setup was also provided by old friend, Geoff Daking of Blues Magoo’s fame. After a long summer of mixing, the project was taken to Fab at Flux Studios in the East Village in NYC where it was mastered.
The project has now been released to the world.
