It's taken several months but the long wait for the finished Wires Rosewood & Roots is almost over. The manufacturing is underway and they've promised me the finished goods should be ready to ship in about 10 days. They should arrive just in time for Christmas and there will be an official release early in 2012.
Thanks are due to several people during the production of Wires. Not least is the long-suffering. . .
Julia Williamson who had to listen to all the intermediate versions of the songs. Julia also had a lot of input into pretty well every aspect of the production including listening to the music and making suggestions for the artwork on the CD case. To give specific credit where it's due, it was Julia who made the suggestion that we should add some other instrumentation to the CD so that it is more than just 12 solo guitar pieces. Without that idea, I would never have browsed the Music Nova Scotia database and met. . .
David Findlay. David has been in music production for over 25 years and brought a wealth of experience and musical talent to the project. From playing several instruments, to mixing and mastering, to overall production, without David, Wires would not be the album that it is. In addition to David, two other musicians contributed their time and talent. . .
Kev Corbett, Nova Scotia's Musician of the Year for 2011 came into Lunenburg for an afternoon and laid down some fabulous backing tracks for Flea's Reel. I initially asked Kev to play percussion and we weren't thinking about bass for it but Kev put his upright bass in the car "just in case" and came up with a great addition to the song. Speaking of laying down the bottom end. . .
Alyssa Wright, my favourite cellobabe, put together a great cello track for Out of Work. I'm particularly grateful to Lyss for coming up with a great track with not very much input from your humble correspondent. It is also noteworthy that she could turn her talents to the job when most of her thoughts were consumed with the health and upcoming surgery of. . .
Don Bray, who engineered and recorded Lyss while waiting for surgery. I met up with Don and Alyssa while I was at the OCFF conference and had a chance to catch up. All of Don's friends are extremely pleased that the operation was a success and he is well on the road to recovery. Once the music was in the can, we then turned our attention to the CD package itself and while I was at the conference and I also met with. . .
Paul Mills, one of the best folk music producers in the country (if not beyond our borders as well), who is also a graphic designer. Paul was very patient with the artist who got fixated on one design for a while but eventually came to see things from a different view. With a good deal of input from Paul we came up with a great design which he then translated into the graphics files need to upload to the manufacturer. It's a simple four-page spread using photographs taken at a photoshoot with . . .
Christian Stalley, a music lover who takes great pictures. We shot about 130 pictures over a couple of hours and selected several of them to use both on the CD package and in some other promotional material.
One final word of thanks goes to Lloyd Williams, my friend and fellow musician in Lunenburg. Kev's bodhran needed a new head and we didn't have time to replace it so Lloyd very kindly lent us his to us for the session.
So now I'm waiting for the e-mail from the manufacturer to let me know the CDs have been shpped. Once it's out on the street, I'm going to be putting together some dates and bring it out to the world. Stay tuned for more details. . .
