Scott Blasey Calms Down, Soldiers On

It seems there's been a reconciliation in the Blasey split. Scott has agreed to stop acting ridiculous and Blasey has agreed to loosen up. Both parties will receive an undisclosed amount of tax-free, non-traceable cash to soothe their bruised egos and in return will continue writing and performing together through the end of the year, at which point all parties will sit down over pork and sauerkraut and discuss the future.

The press has been saying that if Blasey's rhythm elbow starts to give him problems over the long, hot summer he might think about hanging it up. Friends close to the melody-meister believe he's ready to move on to a relaxing life of child-rearing and songwriting. Scott on the other hand is preparing, and some say hoping, for Blasey's early retirement so that he can become a free agent and finally be free of the shackles of his old-school bandleader and his "stupid guitar music." He's been quoted as saying his voice is stronger than ever and ready for the rigors of the club circuit. A new song with Scott's unmistakeable vocals called "The Night the Lights Went Out in Johnstown" has surfaced on the internet under the moniker Vicki Lawrence Seaway. And in a recent radio interview he alluded to secretly working on "adventurous new material, kind of like Barry Manilow meets Radiohead at Fashion Week."

See for yourself this Tuesday, February 12 at the Rhythm House Cafe in beautiful downtown Bridgeville, Pennsylvania. Showtime is 9pm and you must be 21 or over to bear witness to the glory and majesty that is Scott Blasey playing by himself in a room with a bunch of televisions. And don't forget to check LMN.com daily for Local Music News!

"We care because we can't believe you do"

Scott Blasey Splits Up, Breaks Down

Scott Blasey, the Pittsburgh-based musician and songwriter who performs as the singer Scott Blasey, has announced that he is splitting from himself, citing the ever-popular "creative differences" as the reason for the break-up.  Blasey announced on his website last week that he will no longer write or perform as the locally popular singer and would search for a new vocalist to represent him on stage and on record.  Blasey could barely mask his contempt for his stage persona and alter-ego, referring to him repeatedly in the 5000-word diatribe as "Snotty Scotty," or "that asshole lead singer."

Insiders report that trouble has been brewing for months.  And while the two personalities seemed to get along fine onstage, backstage there were reports of verbal hostilities and the occasional dust-up.  Several concertgoers noticed Scott acting strangely last week in a local club moments before he was scheduled to perform.  Rumor has been circulating that the singer was strutting about backstage in a lovely, if somewhat inappropriate, Versace mini-dress chugging Cosmopolitans and singing Liza with a Z.  He'd planned on performing the song a cappella at the beginning of the set in an elaborately choreographed melody of Broadway hits.  This apparently drew the ire of the earnest songwriter who demanded he immediately put away that ridiculous feather boa and change himself back into normal stage attire.  Witnesses watched a visibly distraught Scott, now in jeans and Ryan Adams t-shirt, trudge onstage and slap himself in the face.  He muttered something about Tyra Banks and proceeded to play The Smiths' Frankly, Mr. Shankly for nearly an hour, clearly basking in the pathos of the moment while emphasizing the line "I'd rather be famous than righteous or holy any day, any day, any day."

Just days after the incident, a freshly-shorn but clearly unstable Scott was said to have been clubbing in LA with Jack Wagner and dating a Mexican paparazzo, while the sandal-wearing songwriter was seen playing folk songs at a campground near Wellsboro, Pennsylvania.  The break-up was done via text message from songwriter to singer.  It read simply, "We're through."  Scott reportedly flew back from California in a rage, threw a "Thank God It's Friday" theme party and burned James Taylor in effigy in the yard of their shared home.  The next morning neighbors witnessed the obviously troubled singer dancing shirtless in his driveway wearing only a tiara and short skirt sans underwear.  Law enforcement was called in when Scott retrieved a set of lawn darts from the garage and began tossing them at the phalanx of local and national media.  Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive blasted from the garage as he barricaded himself in the master bathroom under the auspices of needing to "freshen up" before turning himself him.  News helicopters buzzed overhead as police finally entered the residence and brought Scott out restrained and on a gurney.  The entertainer smiled and joked as he was wheeled through the throng, clearly enjoying the attention.  Despite the all-night ordeal he was lucid and cordial as he amiably answered questions and accepted well-wishes from neighbors and fans.  He was taken to an undisclosed location for further evaluation.  Blasey returned home the next day in a cold drizzle.  The sensitive songwriter studied the damage and slowly began picking up the soggy pieces of his glorious past, tumultuous present and uncertain future amid the charred remains of a meticulously papier-mache'd Sweet Baby James.  Fire and Rain indeed!  For more on this and other local celebrity news visit PMZ.com.

An interviewer asked me this question the other day regarding my career, "What motivates you to continue doing what you're doing?"  My answer was simple.

Music still inspires me.

It's a constant companion.  Whether front and center in my job or as field for my daily routine, it's always there.  I don't devour new music the way I used to, but I still find good stuff.  Ryan Adams' Easy Tiger and Pete Yorn's Nightcrawler are recent faves.  And Jonny Lloyd Rollins from Denton, Texas makes some damn fine music too.

Speaking of Texas, I miss Dallas.  Denise misses it too.  We love our new home in the South Hills and the kids are having terrific experiences with our families and friends, but what I wouldn't give for margaritas and fajitas at Mi Cocina or a free concert by Los Lobos at the art museum downtown.

I love how music can evoke specific times and places.  When I listen to the Love Is Hell CD by the aforementioned Mr. Adams I'm transported back to White Rock Lake and feeding the patos with Sofia.  And anytime I hear Ryan's old band Whiskeytown I can see myself walking through Pittsburgh's South Side toward Nick's Fat City circa 1998.  Who needs a time machine when you've got an iPod?

Ten years from now I'll hear Pearls on a String and think about Denise and how we'd just moved into the house and how young the girls were and wasn't that a great time way back in o-seven.  Music will be there, adding the soundtrack to new memories and taking notes along the way so you don't have to.  That's why you know what color Denise's sweater was that night you got together on the South Side back in '98.  It's because of Ryan Adams. 

Thanks dude.

(It was pink…and fuzzy)

          *        *        *        *        *

I've got some solo shows coming up.  This Wednesday, October 17^th I'll be at Thursdays in Bridgewater, PA.  Cover is only $5 at the door and I'm gonna play all night long 'cause Grandma's watching the kids and Mommy and Daddy need to get out.  I'm also playing solo dates in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Arlington, Virginia in November.  As always, check out www.scottblasey.com and www.myspace.com/scottblaseymusic for show details and www.clarksonline.com for band stuff.  So come out and see me.  It's been too long.  I'll sing show tunes.  We'll have a Jager and a Parliament.

Cheers, Scott

VENETIA, PA- Hundreds, perhaps thousands, perished yesterday on a hillside in this well-manicured community just south of Pittsburgh.  Eyewitnesses reported seeing a tall, thin human sitting atop a large, green, blade-wielding device and riding it back and forth on the overgrown hillside.  Some insects were sucked up into the great Machine and thrown incredible distances while others were buried alive underwheel in the dewy terra firma.  One shaken but unharmed grasshopper had this to say about the destruction.

"It was terrible.  We were out in the field enjoying a lovely day, and suddenly we heard this incredibly loud sound.  Some of the older grasshoppers had heard it before and tried to warn the other insects but it was too late.  I lost a buddy.  I still haven't found him."

As bees buzzed overhead in the aftermath, rescue ants were on the scene providing assistance and caring for the wounded.  The cricket community was particularly hard-hit.  Because the attack was carried out in the morning, many were still sleeping after the previous night's concert.  A visibly distraught Jiminy Cricket appeared last night on the Cicada News Network to condemn the act and vow revenge on The Man.

Birds in the north were said to be rejoicing over the slaughter and could be seen swooping down from their hickory tree heights to pick clean the exo-carcasses.  One rapacious raptor told this reporter it was like "shooting fish in a barrel."  Their actions didn't sit well with Arthropods from the western provinces, and hostilities will likely continue unabated with the Aves as it has since the beginning of time.  The next round of peace negotiations is scheduled for the corn field on the autumnal equinox.  That, however, is looking increasingly optimistic.

As the flora lie dormant across the embattled region, parties seeking an end to the devastation are hopeful that continued dry weather will hasten a return to normalcy, and delay the return of…

…The Man.

It's the end of the road for "Travelin' On."  I'm nearing the completion of a four-year journey.  I started writing songs for this record in 2003.  Since that time I moved to Texas, got married and watched my wife give birth to two daughters.  Much has changed for me and this collection of songs is the travel log.

I'm also burned out.  I haven't written a new song since the end of last year.  And I'm having a hard time coming up with another good story to tell you this week.  So after this abbreviated chapter I'm going to take a little time off.  Two weeks should do it.  I'll check back in after the release week and let you know how everything went.  If you've missed any of the chapters or are interested in reading more of my blogs, they're all right here at www.myspace.com/scottblaseymusic.

I find it interesting that even though "Travelin' On" is over for me, its life is really just beginning.  People will hear it and they'll pass it on.  Some folks won't discover it right away and it'll be new to them in a year or two.  I guess it's kind of like raising a child and sending them out into the world.  They're still your child but you no longer have control over them.  Other forces will take over.  You've done all you can do and now you just hope for the best.  If you like what you hear don't be shy about telling your friends.  Feel free to e-mail or call your favorite radio station and request it.  It's up to you now.

Godspeed, Travelin' On.

For a guitar player I own very few guitars; six actually, four acoustic guitars and two electrics.  I have a Fender Telecaster '52 re-issue that I use onstage with the Clarks, and a Larravie acoustic guitar that's outfitted with two pick-ups so I can plug it in and use it onstage too.  Here in Dallas at the Blasey Retirement Home for Musical Instruments I have another American-made Telecaster and two acoustic guitars.  They share space in the family room with a Baldwin upright piano and many oversized pillows.  One acoustic is an Alvarez "Yairi" that has the sun and moon sticker on it.  I played it onstage for many years.  I've worn the wood below the pick guard down to within a millimeter of its life, and because of that I retired it about a year ago.  I suppose I could keep it on the road and it would eventually look like Willie Nelson's guitar, but I wanted to retire it so I wouldn't break it beyond repair or have it stolen.  If our house ever caught fire and the family was safe, it would be the first possession I'd try to save.  The other acoustic in the house is a Guild D-30, a beautiful instrument that I bought at Pittsburgh Guitars in the mid-90s.  The Guild has rarely seen the inside of a guitar case and it's the first one I pick up when I feel like playing.  Between it and the Alvarez, I've written almost every song of mine dating back to the Clarks' Someday Maybe CD.

That leaves one more acoustic guitar.

Back in the early 90s when the band was playing the Decade, we met and befriended a girl from Butler named Lauren.  A few years later Lauren met a guy named Walter.  Walter was from San Diego and he'd moved to Pittsburgh to take a job with US Air.  She introduced us and we became friends.  Walter played guitar too and we all grew closer over the years, even going to San Diego together one January for a vacation.  Walter and Lauren eventually got married and had a son named Tyler.  One night we went to a Mario Lemieux fundraiser at Heinz Field.  They were having a silent auction that included music as well as sports memorabilia.  All night long I had my eye on a framed, autographed Lucinda Williams "Essence" CD cover and lyrics.  Walter couldn't keep his eyes off of a particular acoustic guitar.  The guitar wasn't anything special but the signature on it was Dave Alvin's, formerly of California roots-rockers The Blasters.  Dave wrote Dwight Yoakam's near-hit "Long, White Cadillac" and was a legend in Walter's eyes.  At the end of the night I took home the framed Lucinda cover and Walter took home the Dave Alvin guitar.  We each spent a few hundred bucks on the auction but were thrilled with our new acquisitions.

A few years ago I was in Harrisburg for a show and was riding in a buddy's car going back to the hotel after soundcheck.  I pulled out my cellphone to check my messages.  Lauren had called.  Her voice was weak and I could tell she was on the verge of tears.  "Walter's dead.  Call me," was all she could manage.  I sat in my friend's car in stunned silence, barely able to direct my friend to the hotel.  When I talked to her the next day she explained what had happened.  Walter had been having stomach cramps for a few days.  They took him to the hospital and the doctors found an intestinal blockage.  They operated and removed the blockage and everything seemed to be fine.  Lauren went home that night only to discover the next morning that Walter had passed away.  The procedure had dislodged a clot in an appendage.  It went straight to his heart and stopped it.  He was forty years old.

Not long after the funeral I went over to the house to visit her and Tyler.  We talked a long time and before I left she said she had something she wanted to give me.  Lauren retrieved a guitar case from the closet and I knew right away.  She wanted me to have the Dave Alvin guitar.

I took the guitar to my parents' house in Connellsville and put it on a stand in my old bedroom.  It just seemed to belong there.  I'd notice it in the corner every time I went home but I could never bring myself to play it.  Late last year I was staying at their house for the weekend.  I was sitting on the edge of my old bed looking at Walter's guitar.  The strings were rusted and dust had taken over the headstock.  I thought about Walter and about my own new family.  I thought what a shame it was that no one was playing his guitar.  I picked it up and strummed an out-of-tune G chord.  I realized I had no tuner here, no string winder and not even an extra pack of strings.  I went to the local music store and bought what I needed to make this guitar sing again.  I went back, changed the strings and cleaned it up.  I started playing "Long, White Cadillac" in homage to my friend Walter.

A few weeks later I was back in Connellsville.  It was a Saturday afternoon and Mom was making some lunch for us.  I had some time to kill so I grabbed Walter's guitar from upstairs and brought it down into the living room.  I was thinking about my pregnant wife and my daughter Sofia and how I'd be utterly lost in this world without them.  I started finger-picking this simple, little thing in E and singing the words "Baby, You're My Saving Grace" at the end of each verse.  The melody that came out of me that day was one of the most beautiful things I'd ever written.  It came out so fast and so naturally that I knew I had a keeper.  I rushed into the kitchen to play it for Marie.  My fingers were trembling and my voice was cracking, but I knew from her reaction that I wouldn't be the only person to like this tune.

"Did you just write that?" Mom asked.  I nodded and explained that it just came out.  I didn't have the rest of the lyrics yet but I knew it would be about Denise, and about our growing family.  I went back into the living room and wrote down most of the lyrics in about fifteen minutes, finishing just in time for lunch.

I'm not expecting to write a good song every time I pick up Walter's guitar, but there was something, or rather someone, helping me that day.  I play it often now when I'm at Mom and Dad's.  It resides in the dining room these days, sharing space with Sofia's toys and Mom's china.  Sofia runs her little fingers across the strings as she walks by.  I look at Dave Alvin's signature on the body of that no-name acoustic guitar and I can't help but think of Walter.  I silently thank him for his friendship, and pay my respects to him every time I pick up his guitar.

I lit out of the valley moving at a breakneck pace/

Flying by the signposts running in a one-man race/

The world is full of darkness sometimes can be a dangerous place/

I've found music's my religion and baby, you're my saving grace

I met you on the sidewalk slowed down just to see your face/

Moving through the people heard you calling out my name/

The world is full of sadness sometimes can be a lonely place/

Our house of love it is my shelter and baby, you're my saving grace

I stand atop the mountain thankful for another day/

Wouldn't trade for fame or money wouldn't trade it for no time or place/

The world is full of goodness sometimes can be a lovely place/

And our children are my refuge and baby, you're my saving grace   

About five or six years ago the band was traveling on the Pennsylvania Turnpike and witnessed a really bad accident.  Let me set it up for you.  We're heading east in central Pennsylvania, Jamie's driving our van and trailer and it's just starting to rain a little.  We're in the right hand lane.  Just ahead of us is a van, and beside him is a tractor-trailer in the passing lane.  We're all doing around sixty, sixty-five maybe.  About a quarter of a mile up the highway on the right a utility truck has pulled off onto the side of the road.  A state trooper pulls off the road a couple hundred feet behind the utility truck and puts on his lights in an effort to alert approaching vehicles and to get people to slow down.  The berm, by the way, is only as wide as a lane of traffic and not at all a safe place to pull over and get out of one's car, even if you are a state trooper.

The van in front of us is a white minivan full of Middle Eastern men; the driver probably not used to the vagaries of interstate highway travel.  The trooper is getting out of his car just as the van and semi are approaching.  When the van driver sees the trooper he panics and thinks he needs to get over into the left lane instead of just slowing down.  He's got enough room to get through in the right lane, and the trooper is standing off the road, but for whatever reason he turns directly into the path of the semi.  They lock up and start sliding, careen off the center barrier and travel back across both lanes.  The big-rig hits the trooper and side-swipes his car before they come to a stop just shy of the utility truck, still partially blocking the right hand lane.

You know how in a NASCAR wreck some of the drivers behind the accident have to drive through the smoke not being able to see if they're about to hit something?  Well, that was us.  We were in the right hand lane as this was happening right in front of us.  "Holy shit!" was the phrase I remember hearing more than once as I jumped up from my peaceful slumber.  It was clear we weren't going to stop in time and all of our hearts began to pound.  Fortunately there wasn't anybody on our left and Jamie did a masterful job of slowing down and staying in control.  He got us into the passing lane and we came through the smoke cloud unscathed.  As we made our way through the accident area we looked off to our right and saw the trooper, contorted and bloody, lying on the side of the road.  We were first on the scene and pulled off the road just past the wreckage.  Johnny Knoll, our stage manager and a former Marine, was out the door and running toward the trooper faster than you can say "Semper Fidelis."  We all got out and jogged toward the scene, some faster than others, some not really sure if they wanted to witness what was on the other side of the steaming radiators and blown-out tires.  The van's occupants staggered uninjured out of their vehicle.  Same with the truck driver, who shouted expletives at them as he hurried toward the fallen cop.

I slowed to a walk as I approached the trooper.  I paused to catch my breath and for a second considered turning back.  It looked like John had it as under control as it was going to get for the moment, and I certainly didn't have any expertise that might help this man, so I thought about turning around.  A few of the other guys chose not to see it and there was no shame in simply returning to the van and thanking God that it wasn't you.  But I couldn't.  I was drawn to it, and not necessarily in a helpful, altruistic way, but in a morbid curiousness kind of way.  Certainly I'd help if needed, but I knew that my helpfulness was limited and my presence not entirely unselfish.

So I looked.  I looked at his eyes, barely open and only vaguely aware.  I looked at his skin, broken open in places and bleeding crimson on his brown skin.  I looked at his legs, twisted and broken and coming through his torn pants, and at his uniform, shredded and dirty like it had been through a war.  I looked at his feet.  His shoes were gone.  They were about thirty feet up the road, beside his car, about a foot apart from each other.  It knocked him right out of his shoes.

I listened too.  I listened to him moan, heavy and low, like the devil had him by the throat.  I listened to John talking to him, preaching the gospel that everything was going to be alright, even though it wasn't.  I listened to the sound of tires on wet asphalt, the cars and their occupants parading slowly by.  I listened to the truck driver explaining to nobody in particular that it wasn't his fault.  I listened to the sirens getting louder.

Occasionally I'll notice a cross on the side of a highway.  A person has died there.  It's usually just a small, white, wooden cross with a wreath around it and a few words on it.  Sometimes the highway feels like church: a linear place of worship where pre-determination and randomness clash like good and evil.

The cop didn't die, but he was broken.  He was in the hospital for weeks and rehab for months.  Jamie had to go to Philadelphia to testify in court about what he had witnessed.  I came out of it more aware than ever that even though we have our hands on the wheel and we think we know where we're going, sometimes we don't get there.

Toward the end of last year I got this idea for a song title, "Church of the Open Highway."  Around the same time I started playing this simple G, E minor, A, D progression.  It had a cool vocal melody and on the fourth time through I'd flip the G and the E minor and finesse the melody just a little.  It was pure magic.  I sang the words Church of the Open Highway and they fit perfectly.  Now it was just a matter of writing a story to fit the title.  And I already had a story.

I see you coming my way/

I grip the wheel and I pray/

Forgive me is all I can say/

The Church of the Open Highway

I'd never been to San Antonio prior to writing the song "San Antonio."  I didn't think it was really necessary.  I could make up a story about a guy who gets a divorce and moves from the north to the south.  I could make certain assumptions about the place without ever gazing up at the Alamo or strolling down the Riverwalk.  I didn't need to know the streets or the history; I just needed it to rhyme.

I lived my whole life in Pennsylvania, save for a two-and-a-half month stretch of serving up crab every night in Ocean City, Maryland.  I lived in Pittsburgh, the capital of Western Pennsylvania, for fifteen years from '88 through '03.  I made the move to Texas in the spiritual sense in January of 2004 when Denise and I got off the plane from Cancun, where we'd decided to start a family together over margaritas and mariachi music.  I moved there in a more practical sense the following October, right after the Clarks got off the road and right before Sofia was born.  I'd only been to Dallas once before and knew nothing of the place aside from what Denise had told me, and that was this: the weather's great.

Good enough for me.

Of course I moved there to be with her, but I couldn't help being excited by the change of culture, the food, the music and the seemingly endless stretch of sunny days.  I imagined this guy from a northern mining town who's recently divorced and wants to start over somewhere new.  Maybe he's had some trouble with the law or his job sucks…whatever, he just wants out.  He picks San Antonio "because I like the name, it's just so not the same" and says goodbye to "the rain, the hopelessness and pain."  He gets over the fear of leaving the only home he's ever known.  He finds a job and meets a girl who dances next to him as he mixes sound for "her favorite local band."

As Salim and I were working on San Antonio and the other seven originals, I realized I needed to go back and listen to some old ideas and find a diamond in the rough.  We were doing Sam Cooke's "Bring It on Home to Me" and I needed to write two more, which was getting harder to do as the recording deadline loomed.  There had to be something on my tiny Olympus Digital Wave Player worth a closer look.  I had a backlog of about twenty half-finished ideas from the past few years and as I listened back on my computer speakers I heard Denise utter those three magic, little words.

"What's that one?"

That's wife-speak for "I like that song."

"Be Your Man" started life as "I Could Be Your Man."  It had the chords, a melody and the line, "baby I could be your man."  Not exactly e.e. cummings but damn if it didn't sound great in the break between the A and the E.  Denise picked up on it right away.  So I started about the task of writing lyrics to suit the title, easier said than done.  And writing a song called "Be Your Man" is harder than it sounds.  You can't write it straight, or at least I can't, like a love song, even if it's up-tempo, without coming off corny or sappy or both.  I thought maybe I'd write a story about a hot transvestite who comes up to me after a show and whispers in my ear, "baby I could be your man."  But I decided that wouldn't go over big.  Then one day while I was driving I had my iPod on shuffle and XTC's "Mayor of Simpleton" came on.  The chorus is "And I may be the Mayor of Simpleton but I know one thing and that's I love you."  The song is about this guy who's clearly out of his league in the pursuit of a woman.  He doesn't have the smarts, the looks or the money for this girl, but he thinks he could still be her man.

Thanks for the inspiration lads.

Now the whole thing is like a jigsaw puzzle.  All the pieces are right there in front of you.  You have a pretty good idea of what it's going to look like when it's done but you just have to take the time to figure out where everything goes.  It took me almost a month.  Most of the time the lyric writing only takes a few days, and sometimes just a few hours, but this took weeks.  The subject was uncomplicated but the wording was intricate.  I'd crank up the vocal-less track in the car and sing my latest version, maybe discovering a new way to turn a phrase on the drive to Albertson's.  It's a fun and sometimes maddening process.  And when you go in to the studio to record the vocals, particularly with songs that haven't been test-driven live, you discover that some things work better than others.  You tweak it a little more until you're satisfied, re-record the vocal a few days later and, whoomp, there it is.

The guys that played on this record were well aware of the 70s vibe that Salim and I were going for.  We referenced the slide guitar playing of early 70's George Harrison for the break in "Time to Go."  We wanted that distinctive farfisa organ sound of Elvis Costello and the Attractions for "Be Your Man."  And Rip, who helped with mixing, was awestruck at the uncanny, and totally unintended, resemblance between B.J. Thomas' voice and mine on "Bird on a Wire."  He meant it, and I took it, as a compliment.  "He's a great singer," I think were his words when he realized that the comparison may not come out the way he intended.  I agreed and we proceeded to sing a few bars of "Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song" together.

Now it was just a matter of writing two more songs.  Again, easier said than done, especially in light of the fact that the other new idea I'd recorded recently pretty much sucked and was abandoned despite being nearly finished.  But Be Your Man came out better than I had a right to expect for a one-time cast-off, and the Sam Cooke tune, after three or four humbling vocal sessions, was okay and would eventually be made better by the lead guitar playing of my right-hand man Rob James.  Time was running out though.  I'd given myself one year, all of '06, to finish the recording and mixing of "Travelin' On."  Now we're getting down to crunch time.

I've since been to San Antonio, and I was right, there was no need to go there before writing the song.

I love piano.  I wish I could play.  I play around and have fun but only for the girls at home.  I do a mean "Little Red Caboose."  I bought a piano around the turn of the century at one of those college music department sales.  It's a Baldwin upright and sounds just fine to my untrained ear.  The piano-playing sales guy played it for me and thought it sounded "darn fine, especially for the price."  Good enough for me.  I never regretted it.  It lived in the Clark house for a few years before I hauled it down to Dallas in the band trailer with a Steelers blanket wrapped around it.  Sofia kneels on the bench and bangs out atonal, toddler-punk.  I try to keep up on guitar but it's like James Taylor trying to play along with Radiohead.  Her first song is called "Under the Bridge."  It goes like this,

I under the bridge/

Under the bridge/

Under the bridge/

I under the bridge/

Under the bridge/

Under the bridge

Brilliant.  Although it might be too sophisticated for the Noggin channel.  Laurie Berkner wishes she could dig that deep.  "I'm not perfect."  Please.

Anyhow, about the time I got tired of playing Travelin' On I started messing around with a couple of blues ideas.  I'm far from a blues guy, but its progressions and melodies are open-ended enough to add one's own flava, however vanilla it may be.  The first one I wrote was called "Little Sofia."  I cribbed some of the chords from Martin Sexton's "Freedom of the Road" and wrote my daughter a lullaby filled with imagery of the place she was born.

And now the sun is climbing high/

Another clear, blue Texas sky

I guess it was around the end of '05, not long after Sofia's first birthday, that I started thinking seriously about making another solo record.  I knew from the time that the band was making Fast Moving Cars that the next studio record I'd make would be my own, but it really got kicked into gear when I met Salim.

I have two really good friends who live in Austin.  Marc and Guy are triplets- they have a sister who lives in Chicago- who were born in Leeds, England and grew up in the North Hills of Pittsburgh.  We've been friends since college, Marc lived in the fraternity next door and liked the Smiths and the Church even more than I did, and Guy went to Clemson and dated an old girlfriend of mine.  After I moved to Dallas Marc said I should meet a friend of his named Salim Nourallah.  He explained that Salim has been a fixture on the Dallas scene for years as a musician and producer, and we'd probably hit it off.  So the next time Marc came up to Dallas we all met for lunch and things began to move forward.  Salim suggested I come over to his studio.  It's in a converted garage behind his house which is only about a ten minute drive and has everything I'd need to make a quality record for relatively little money.

On Tuesday, November 15, 2005, the recording sessions for Travelin' On began.  That Tuesday and the following Thursday I went in and recorded demos of some of the tunes that would end up on the record.  I'd sit on a stool with my acoustic guitar and just play them live.  We'd do two or three takes and move on to the next song.  We started out doing demos as a way of feeling each other out.  He needed to make sure the songs were good and to see if he liked the direction I was going.  I had to feel comfortable in his studio and trust that he'd be able to take my ideas and turn them into something great.  By the third session, while recording multiple background vocals over the acoustic guitar of See You Around, we stopped and acknowledged to each other that without realizing it we'd started to make a record; nobody double-tracks three-part harmonies on a demo recording.  We were having so much fun that we recorded all the vocals for See You Around before any of the other instruments were recorded.  We'd planned on going back and redoing them, but once the tracks were recorded we listened back and agreed that the original vocals were not only good enough…they kicked ass!</FONT>

Travelin' On is not only the name of my new record it's also the name of one of the songs.  Travelin' On the song is the closest of the new material in sound to the stuff on my first two discs; stripped-down, acoustic guitar-based tunes that relied on songwriting and singing.  Travelin' On the record is filled out with drums, electric guitars, piano and even a female vocal on one of the tracks.  Travelin' On the song wouldn't sound out of place on Don't Try This at Home.

We have a room in our house called the Moroccan room.  In the middle of it is a large, dark wooden table that Denise bought when she first moved to Texas.  She had the legs cut down so that it sits a little over a foot off the ground.  There's a beautiful Middle Eastern rug beneath it and pillows all around.  Candles fill up the middle of the table.  If I had a hookah pipe it would be the perfect place to display it.  When I moved into her house I brought my piano and guitars.  They now occupy the room's periphery, along with photographs and a couple of decor-appropriate wedding gifts.  It's my favorite room in the house and the one you notice when you walk in the front door.

I started finger-picking a guitar melody in G not long after Sofia was born.  I'd sit on the short table and play it over and over while she slept.  It was quiet and gentle and the perfect backdrop to her first few months on the planet.  It turned out to be great finger-picking practice too.  I played it for weeks before I ever started thinking about adding lyrics.  Then I noticed the verses taking shape, "Somethin somethin somethin/ I'm not staying here/ I'll be travelin' on."  Denise was probably wondering if it was the only idea I had.

When I was a young boy my dad drove a green GMC pickup truck with a white roof.  He owned some land outside of Connellsville and sometimes in the summer we'd get in that truck and go pick blueberries on a rural road near the property.  We'd collect them in a Frisbee and put them in a bucket on the tailgate.  We'd take them back to the house- listening to "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" along the way- wash them off, sprinkle sugar on them and eat them 'til there was just sugar, then I'd run my fingers through the sugar 'til it was gone too.

My dad had eclectic taste in music when I was growing up.  He listened to all kinds of stuff; Al Green, Louis Prima, the Ramsey Lewis Trio, Jim Croce, Gladys Knight and the Pips.  He loved it all.  He's since narrowed his palate to a steady diet of Stevie Ray Vaughn, and the one and only Joey DeFrancesco, whoever the hell he is.  Actually, thanks to Big D I now know that Joey DeFrancesco is "a helluva organ man!"  He still has a snare drum and congas in the garage.  Back in the day he'd drum along with Ray Charles, occasionally closing his eyes and yelling out "yeah baby!" whenever the groove made its way into his soul.  I'd sit there eating my blueberries and jam right along with him, laughing out loud whenever he really got into it.  Those are great memories, and they explain my fondness for old B.J. Thomas songs.  Sometimes he'd sit me on his lap behind the wheel of that GMC and let me steer.  He was the kind of dad who wanted his son to enjoy life the way he did, and nothing makes a pre-pubescent boy happier than sitting on his dad's lap and steering a pickup truck down the road.  I'm sure he had a finger on the wheel, but in my mind I was driving that truck back to the house on the hill, fresh blueberries riding shotgun.  When it came time to write lyrics for Travelin' On, I was thinking about how this journey started.  And even though it's the fifth song on the record, it's really the beginning of the story.

Well I stood on the backseat when I was just five/

By the time I was ten my daddy he let me drive/

I'm not staying here/

I'll be travelin' on

From there it's a story about a wandering spirit who's dying to get out of the small town he grew up in.  Some of the lyrics are taken directly from personal experience and others are made up to suit the tale.  I won't tell you which are which.  That would spoil the fun. 

I stole a VW when I was eighteen/

Tried to get out but I always fell in between/

Not quite staying there/

Almost travelin' on

I made the West Virginia line/

And the liquor store just in time/

Asleep before the dawn/

Man I'm gone

Front-loaded the trunk with a cold case of beer/

Spent the next day where the sky and the water's clear/

Can't be staying here/

Gotta be travelin' on

And I bathed in the stream headed south on nineteen/

Got pulled over near Beckley I thought I had got away clean/

It's nice this time of year/

The leaves are all coming down

I saw the Carolina line/

From the jail on state road nine/

Just waiting for the sun/

Man I'm done

So I called up my dad and he said straight away/

You keep one eye open I'll see you in thirty days/

Don't be staying there/

You better be travelin' home

He died on the day that I turned twenty-one/

Gave me the keys and these words to his only son/

No one's staying here/

We'll all be travelin' on/

No one's staying here/

We'll all be travelin' on