Today is Saturday, November 16th. The last two days have been both the most incredibly stressful and incredibly rewarding of my life! After years of performances, preparations and saving our pennies, Singleton Street entered the studio on Thursday and, late Friday night, emerged with a 13 track Gospel CD. Hallelujah!
For years we'd been in the planning. This summer, we'd finally scraped enough cash together to head into a studio to record our long overdue Gospel CD. Our first CD, "Almost Live" was a compilation of both bluegrass and Gospel.
That had been an excellent experience, and we broke even in under 2 years (1,000 units), but we'd been left longing for the chance to dedicate a CD just to Gospel. Needless to say, we weren't about to miss a thing in this experience. We chose Pachyderm Studios in Cannon Falls, MN. In the 80's and 90's, this place served up clients like Nirvana, Eric Clapton and Soul Asylum. It's not quite as lustrous today (thank goodness), but the karma and charisma are still present. The sound board was reputedly used by Jimmy Hendrix and, as the story goes, John Lennon once put his feet up on the corner. Makes for a good story.
Our engineer was Zach Hollander, a wonderfully smart, funny, patient magician that took our voices and instruments and worked magic.
Where the studio was vintage 80's with warm woods and tube equipment, the grounds were equally as welcoming... stunning, actually.
Both days were filled with intense recording sessions which proved both fun and exhausting.
Every take was scrutinized for good and bad... until we finally arrived at the right mix.
Zach was diligent and dedicated!
Jimmy's son Alex joined us and took some pictures of the event.
DeAnne made passing the time much more fun! And she cooked us some great vidals between sessions (watch for her credit as catering on the CD).
But she wasn't the only one carrying me through these sessions. ).
Lots of others were with me in spirit... including a bunch of wonderful folks from banjohangout (thank you so much!). Now we're all awaiting delivery of the final mix and master, but within a few days our files will be safely at the duplicator. Hopefully, we'll have a CD in time for some Christmas stockings.
Oh, one more thing. Here's the artwork for the cover, courtesy of my lovely bride, Ms. DeAnne.
Singleton Street - "Wingin' it." What a graced opportunity we have been given. Thank you for sharing in our joy!
