Friday, July 7 Recording
The morning weather for July 7 was positively springlike - 59 degrees at 6 a.m. The drive to Lexington was, accordingly, splendid and smooth. Michael T. and Byron were waiting in Studio A when I got there (early). I had decided that it was time to get away from bluegrass for a bit and see how recording some other styles would go. The choices to record were “Madman On the Corner” and “Slave’s Day Off,” a new tune that I had been rehearsing quite a bit, just to learn to play it in public. “Madman,’ a tune I wrote back in 1981, has a Caribbean/Latin feel. As it turned out, it also has quite the Buffett feel, too.
“Madman” went down quite quickly, using the same double acoustic guitar tracks. After that was done, Michael T. remarked that he had mentioned to me that he had a Buffett cover band and that they had received requests for a CD when they play. He was, he said, looking for songs and he liked “Madman” and wanted to cut it. Naturally, I said ‘yes’ and we briefly discussed the mechanics, to wit, a license. He asked what my publishing company was; I told him that I handled my own publishing through ASCAP, which satisfied him. He said they would burn 1,000 copies, so I’d pick up $80, which would cover the cost of registering the PA and, perhaps, buy me some dinner out.
After that bit of business, we laid down the guitar tracks for “Slave’s Day Off,” which also went rapidly, though the battery in my Taylor’s picking was causing a bit of a hum. Fortunately, they had the software needed to take that kind of hum out of the tracks.
I sang the scratch vocal tracks for both songs and that was the session: one-and-a-half hours, with time to chat. I got my two CDs and headed home.