Happy Mardi Gras! Greetings to everybody out here in cyberspace. I hope this year is off to a great start for you, full of health, prosperity, and happiness.
I’ve taken part in some pretty cool recording sessions the past few weeks. It was a great honor to do a track with the Beckham Brothers for a Lowell George tribute album that is being put together by his son, Luke George. Little Feat is on my short list of favorite bands of all time. Lowell was absolutely brilliant. A total musician’s musician: top-shelf in terms of singing, playing, composing, producing. Dixie Chicken, Feats Don’t Fail Me Now, and Time Loves A Hero are all killer albums and are testaments to Lowell’s genius. I was asked to play piano on a cool arrangement of a b-side tune, “Dorisville”, that I wasn’t familiar with. I mainly stuck to doing my own thing but couldn’t resist the opportunity to sprinkle in some Billy Payne flavor crystals here and there. As far as keyboardists go, he is a giant.
On the topic of Little Feat, I know Waiting For Columbus is considered one of the greatest live albums of all time, and for good reason. But please do yourself a favor and listen to this show from 1974. This is a killer recording from an in-studio performance. The band is really on fire. Click here to listen. The groove on “Two Trains” will explode your brain.
Last week I played some keys on the new Leopold & His Fiction album. I’ve known Daniel James for a few years now and have come to really admire his talents. He is a great songwriter and is exceptionally gifted as a producer. Listening to him sing and play guitar, you get the idea that he is the captain of a burning ship. He has that kind of fire.
As I write this, I’m just a few minutes from landing at LAX. I’ll be here in Los Angeles for the next few days recording with Jazz Mills. Jazz is one of the most talented vocalists I know and has been a really close friend for a long time. A fella named Dave Way, who has worked with artists like Prince, Michael Jackson, Macy Gray, Christina Aguilera, Beyonce, Sheryl Crow and Toni Braxton (ughh, to name a few!) is producing the album. Needless to say, I am excited to see how this unfolds…
Some records that I’ve been enjoying here recently:
Vetiver, To Find Me Gone
Ry Cooder, Paradise and Lunch
James Taylor, Mud Slide Slim and The Blue Horizon
Wynton Marsalis & Eric Clapton, Play The Blues
Oscar Peterson Trio, Night Train
Rob Ickes, Road Song
The Barr Brothers, The Barr Brothers
“One person comes into a country with a little cold or influenza and it spreads. If such a bad thing can spread, can not an elevated thought of love, kindness and goodwill towards all men spread? See then that there are finer germs, germs of goodwill, of love, kindness, and feeling, germs of brotherhood, of the desire for spiritual evolution, which can have greater results than the other ones. If we all have that optimistic view, if we all work in our little way, we can accomplish a great deal.” -Hazrat Inayat Khan
TN