Nashville sessions
Posted by admin on July 3rd, 2009After church on Sunday is when our journey began. We landed in Nashville around 5 pm and met up with Emily and Mark Volman for dinner at the Sunset Grill. Dirks Bentley popped in for a bottle of wine while we were there, was kind of a funny moment. Mark took us on a quick tour of Nashville which is actually not very big. We went through the downtown strip with all the clubs, which is only about a 5 block strip, and then went through music row of course. It was all pretty exciting just because of what was ahead and the anticipation of the studio project we were there to create.

After a great night’s sleep we got to the studio around 9:30 am and the work began. Meeting all the guys was a blast. Just being part of this experience and seeing how beautifully they can play a song just by some quick number charts and a tempo was fascinating and was a real education. The music just comes to life and turns into what you had imagined it could sound like in a perfect world. These guys are the real deal! At 5 pm when most people’s work day is over we began the overdub sessions with Dan Dugmore and just let him run free for a while on some steel guitar parts. At the end of the day we walked away very excited, blessed, inspired and still a little bit nervous about how we would tie everything together the following day. Between my dad’s production direction of country/rock leanings and my more country/bluesy style we were winding up with something pretty cool and inspiring. It all went by pretty fast.
That night we went to see The Players which is the band that Michael plays in and man were we all impressed.
The band consists of some of the best studio players in Nashville and boy howdy does it show, we had a blast.
The second day of sessions were mostly overdubs with the incredibly talented Chris Leuzinger (Guitar) and Hank Singer (Fiddle). Chris really helped us tie together all the loose ends, finding and filling any gaps in songs and helping us find the direction we were looking for. Chris hears things that of course I never would have heard like adding in a baritone guitar double on one song and playing his patented high string guitar fill on another song. Hank came in and played fiddle on three of the songs. In particular he played a fiddle lick in the chorus of a song written by Alan Lemke which was exactly how we’d imagined it and exactly where we wanted it. We just let him rip expecting to go back and then adapt what we wanted with what he did but no he did it better than we had even imagined; perhaps that’s because he has created and played so many of those great fiddle licks that are out there today. Really Chris and Hank just did some masterful stuff.
Heading back to Colorado I think we were all relieved and excited that we got what we came to Nashville to get. Now we are just more motivated and excited to write more and record more and keep it moving. I’m not sure exactly what we will do with the Jesse Furay Lynch project but once it’s finished I know we will all be very proud of it. Now it’s back into the studio to do vocals. Thanks to everyone who worked on this – Michael Rhodes (bass), Dan Dugmore and Chris Leuzinger (guitars, steel, dobro etc.), Pete Wasner (keys), Dennis Holt (drums), Hank Singer (fiddle), John Macy and Marc Lacuesta (sound engineers) and Quad Studios. What a blessing you all were and are.
I’m looking forward to working with them all again God willing sometime in the near future.
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