First Album Complete!

It was a little over a year ago from the time I wrote this blog that the idea of making an album NOW was put in my brain. Thankfully it sprouted and grew properly (in my opinion) and now I have CD's professionally made. I even got to hire musicians and a graphic artist/designer to help with the album cover!

Since it was my first album, I didn't know what I was doing. And since it's my first album, now I can say I have an album. IF I make another album it will have a different flavor (probably) because now I know where I'm heading since I did this.

This album wouldn't have been possible without the Cohen-Grappel Autoharp endowment. The music wouldn't have been so great without the musicians I hired and the connections they had to more musicians! George Mason, Bea Graves, Matthew Bullis, and Eric Douglas were the core of the "sound". I imagine us sitting around the campfire playing our acoustic instruments and we all are pretty close to being in tune, I can't complain!

It was recorded in mostly two locations with a couple more tracks being recorded in a small home studio. Mesa AZ and Harrison AR. Why two places? I don't know but I knew I was going to need to find some singers from my homeland because it had to be authentic and no fake accents. That was cathartic because I have a unique accent and the colleges I went to tried to shame me for it (much like the Army shamed me for being plump, nothing personal) I decided it's OK if my friends make fun of me for a second and then laugh and move on, but it's not OK if people change my grades for it, or base my pay on it!