May has been a bit of a whirlwind. My long-time friend and occasional collaborator Duncan Woodcock came to Lunenburg for a visit. We spent much of his time here playing music. Way back in the annals of history, we wrote a couple of instrumental pieces. One piece is called Crusaders and Jesters, the second, written three years later, is called Three Years On. We had only a poor quality recording of one and Duncan had recorded the other on one of his CDs but we did not have good versions of the two of us playing them together.
First thing we needed to do was a bit of rehearsal but it didn't take us long to get back in the swing of it, so we popped upstairs to the Lincoln Street Studio and recorded Duncan's parts and my parts for the two tracks. We then went over to Otitis Media where David Findlay, producer extraordinaire, added a little bass and percussion to one of them, did his usual excellent clean and shine and gave us what we believe are the "definitive" versions of the two tracks music.
With that experience under our belts, we started working on new material and in surprisingly little time, came up with another duet, called 50 Not Out. Upstairs we went again to the studio and laid down the two guitar parts and then went back to David's where we came up with two versions of the new piece. One is just the two acoustic guitars, one has bass and percussion. Duncan really likes the "full band" version and I prefer the acoustic version, but they're both good.
As you may know if you've been following my blog, I've been working on a new album, called Eight Winds, over the winter and with Duncan's approval, I'm going to include all three songs on it with the acoustic version of 50 Not Out probably the one that makes in onto the album.
It would be unfair of me to tease you with the prospect of new music and then not let you hear it so here is a link to preliminary versions of the three duets on a hidden page on my website.
The second half of May was equally active as I headed down into New England for a short tour. The anchor date was the Water Wood & Wire Festival sponsored by Cobscook Bay Music in Lubec, ME. WW&W featured your humble correspondent and two other talented guitar players, Frank Fotusky and Attila Vural, playing a variety of concerts and workshops over the weekend.
Following that weekend, I was down into Massachusetts and Rhode Island for a few more days before heading back to Lunenburg. In the interim, I was corresponding with Duncan over another musical opportunity which may come to fruition in the coming months. More about that when plans are starting to gel. Keep your fingers crossed and watch this space or follow me on Facebook for more details in the next few weeks.
Cheers, Bob
bobardern.ca
