Carolina soul, Texas heart, and some Nashville Twang, this is country music thrown back on the turntable!
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EARL CLIFTON
-BROKEN FLOWER SINGLE- [Digital Release] Album credits
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1. BROKEN FLOWER
(H. McKueon – E. Clifton) Earl Clifton BMI
2. ALL THE TIME (Featuring Molly Conley)
(E. Clifton) Earl Clifton BMI
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Recorded and mixed at FRONT ROOM
Engineer – Cliff Meekins
*Additional Tracking of Steel Guitar for Broken Flower recorded and engineered by Ricky Armentrout at ATM Music Studio, Nashville , TN. www.atmmusicstudio.com
**Molly Conley vocal recorded and engineered by Gary Roadarmel at The Nut House, Nashville, TN
Molly appears courtesy of Sheridan Records, Nashville, TN www.myspace.com/sheridanrecordings
Guitars, bass, drums, cymbal, piano, organ, xylophone, lead vocal – Earl Clifton
Additional Lead Vocal - Molly Conley of Porter Hall TN www.myspace.com/porterhalltn
Steel Guitar – John Heinrich www.johnheinrich.net
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Produced by Little Boot
Mastered by Bob Katz at Digital Domain
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Broken Flower was an original poem written by Mary Lou Helen Mckueon (Helen) sometime in the early forties. Back in those days, long before the radio, poems were a popular thing for kids and young adults to recite back and forth to each other. Out of Helens amateur writings spawned “Broken Flower” a real good one, the tear jerker of them all, inspired by a Dear John letter. She memorized her poem and could recite it on request. One day I was working for Helens daughter, Michele Baskette on a few things at their house as a house painter. I noticed a Lap Steel guitar in the corner and was surprised to find that Helen was the person that played it. I was mostly surprised that she played it at her age I suppose, but nonetheless she picked it up and started strumming out tunes through a small amplifier. I told her I played guitar and could sing and before I knew it I had her granddaughter’s acoustic in my hand strumming out some of my tunes in front of her whole family. A great relationship started from their and shortly after she recited the old poem to me. I fell in love with the words. They were old, and fancy. She wanted me to try to turn it into a song. Nikki, Helen’s granddaughter wrote out the poem for me and I worked on it for a while. I think I had a great chorus section but I still needed a bridge or something whatever it was, I never could finish the song.
A few years passed by and one summer I was spending a family vacation with my brother and his and my family in the Outer Banks (Kitty Hawk) North Carolina. We were trading licks, songs, and music we were working on and then I sang what I had of “Broken Flower” and he was flabbergasted! He asked me where I’d been hiding that song and then made me play it for other family members and friends when they came in. He told me I should finish it and record it as soon as possible. With this new energy and excitement everyone seemed to have about it, I finished writing it shortly after and it became what it is today.
It’s a short sweet, lowly tune, a tear jerker the way I heard it the first time when Helen recited it to me. You can’t help but feel the emotion of the words in this old poem and I’m glad we got it into song. It’s a true classic and very probably the best song I’ll ever sing.
-Cliff Meekins a.k.a. Earl Clifton