Heather and Juniper - Joanne Cooper / Bob Buford

Soundcloud link: Heather and Juniper

Joanne first posted info about this song in her FAWM 2017 thread. Please see that posting for more information. She wanted help turning her lyics into a John Denver or Emmylou Harris style folk-country song.

I rewrote her original lyrics to fit more closely to something I thought John might do. I also created the music using an Ovation Elite (circa 1985) tuned to low-D, similar to the Ovation Adamas John used on "I'd Rather Be A Cowboy" on Youtube.

Joanne provided the melody and lead and harmony vocal tracks to accompany the music. I mixed it all down in Reaper and here's the result. Hope you enjoy what we did here.


****** Song Summary *************
Title: Heather and Juniper
File:Heather and Juniper.SGU
Key=D , Tempo 75, Length (m:s)=4:17
8 bar intro, 71 bar chorus, from bar 9 to bar 79. Repeat x1 chorus
No Melody
No Soloist track.
Song is saved with Volume, Pan, Reverb, Chorus, Bank0,
Song is saved with bar changes for Time signature,
Style is _FID16BF.STY (16ths Fiddle Folk-Pop )

RealTracks in style: 1759:Bass, Electric, Pop16ths Ev 085
RealTracks in style: 1766:Mandolin, Rhythm Pop16Sync Ev 085
RealTracks in style: 1761:Guitar, Acoustic, Strumming Pop16ths Ev16 085
RealTracks in style: 1760:Fiddle, Background Pop16ths Ev 085
RealDrums in style: NashvilleBrushesBalladPushEv16: a: Sidestick, Brushes b: Brushes

*******************

LYRICS:

Heather and Juniper

( 8 bar instrumental intro )

(Verse 1)
Long ago in sweet dreams
Their fragrance I recall
The heather and the juniper
Grew wild past our back wall
But times so often change
And the elders of our town
Decided in their wisdom
To spread Conifers around

(Verse 2)
Father loved the Heather
And the Juniper so green
But Conifers he hated
And he vowed to change that scene
He woke us up one dark night
With a shovel in his hand
Then off to the offending field
To make his rebel stand

(Verse 3)
Dare I uproot the Conifers,
So tender and so small?
My heart would not allow it
And my tears began to fall
I worked at doing nothing
Though my father did not see
And the Conifers remained there
Their fate known just to me

(Chorus)
Oh the lovely fields of heather
Lying purple in the sun
Embraced by fragrant juniper
By nature there to run
For every choice you make
There is something dear to lose
So what you get eventually
May not be what you choose.

(8 bar instrumental turnaround)

(Bridge)
In all the years that passed
I forgot that fateful night
Until one day by accident
I chanced upon the sight
A field of purple Heather
Entwined with Juniper
Amid a lovely stand so tall
Mighty Conifers

(Chorus)
Oh the lovely fields of heather
Lying purple in the sun
Embraced by fragrant juniper
By nature there to run
For every choice you make
There is something dear to lose
So what you get eventually
May not be what you choose.

Bob and Joanne,

This sounds professional all around. Beautiful vocals Joanne!
Like the lyrics and the general crystal-clear sound of the ovation and the general mix.

Rob

Bob and Joanne
Nicely done. Lovely harmonies and main vocals with some very pretty guitar playing.

Peter

Love the sound of dropped D...

Nice song. Good job on this.

Bob & Joanne,
Lovely collaboration!
The gentle folksy story is a great fit for the style you`ve chosen and the melody had me swaying.
Everything- vocals,harmonies and guitar playing works so well.
Well done...and under some time constraints no doubt.

Robert

Thanks Rob and Ann-Marie. It was a fun collaboration. Such a joy to work with someone as talented as Joanne.

Thanks for listening,
Bob

Hi Bob Buford, fantastic job on this! I found this really relaxing and easy to listen to. Well done you two!

Hi Joanne and Bob,

This is a really great song! And yes, it does have a strong John Denver flavor to it. Terrific song and great vocal by Joanne. Wishing you both the very best,

Alan & Di

Bob / Joanne,

Great collaboration. Excellent song, production and outstanding delivery by Joanne.

Bob

Rob and Ann Marie, Peter, robert, Herb, joe, bob and Al (nice to hear from you again, where ya been?)
Thanks so much for your nice comments on this song. It was an absolute treat to work with Bob Buford on this. He did such a great job on beefing up the lyrics and the music bed AND the mixing and mastering. I just sung a melody! Thank you bob. This is a keeper!!!

Nice job on this, good write and I love the vocal, particularly the strong harmonies.
Also love the tone you got on the guitar! I'll need to try dropped 'D' one of these days.
Enjoyed the listen!

Nice collab, guys.

The vocal has a nice smoothness to its sound and the harmonies are very nicely done.

Sort of a Peter-Paul-and-Mary sound to the whole thing.

Thanks, Josie. You recognized this gem of a story in Sigrid Rausing's podcast and brought it to life. And that voice...there's just no song here without it. You rock. I just sketched around the edges. "Even an old blind hog finds an acorn once in a while."

Thanks to everyone for listening and for all the nice comments. I think there may be more of this coming.

What a beautiful song. Everything was perfect. Lovely vocal and lyric. Guitar was very cool. Super arrangement

Hey, Scott. Glad you enjoyed it.
Thanks for listening,
Bob

Bob and Josie,

This was a pleasure to listen to. To my ears, everything fitted together and sparkled with quality. At the end of the journey, the first thought that appeared in my mind was, "That was really well done!".

Definitely a collaboration to be proud of.

Regards,
Noel

Hi Noel, You made my day.
Thanks for listening,
Bob

Hi Robert, thanks for your nice comments. I love the story Joanne came up with from just a small nugget of an incident she'd heard. And of course her voice is magnificent and well-suited to this kind of song and production. Sort of Joan Baez meets Emmylou. There were no stated time constraints but it did come together rather quickly considering the 10,000 mile space between us. Certainly there are some things I would have done a bit differently, given more time. But I'm not sure it would have resulted in a better end product, perhaps just different. I think Joanne wanted to include it in her FAWM 2017 album. Not sure if she was able to do that. We've discussed doing more projects together. Should be fun.

Thanks for listening,
Bob (of the "The Joanne and Bob Show")

Great one guys. An excellent production together. Just lovely.

Bob and Joanne

Well done on a magic collaboration and a sterling production!
This one I will revisit often as it sets a very high standard for recording and mixing.

Hey, David! Glad you liked it.
Thanks for listening,
Bob

Just beautiful! Great collab. I really enjoyed your vocals, Joanne. Good job on all the harmonies. I agree with Herb, I like the drop-d guitar. Great overall sound.

Steve

Great sound. You're making me miss my old Ovation...

This is a wonderful collaboration and production. You should do more together.

Top notch at every level.

Enjoyed my listen and will be back again to listen some more.

Charlie

Late on this one- sorry, couldn't be helped. This is great! Enjoyed it very much.



Regards,


Bob

Steve, Charlie, and Bob,

Thanks guys. Very pleased you enjoyed it. Joanne and I are working on some covers now. You'll have to watch SoundCloud for those. Current Project: "Gulf Coast Highway" Nanci Griffith. This is gonna be SO good.

Thanks for listening,
Bob

Outstanding. Wonderful story that the lyrics capture well. Great lead, and vocal, like the harmony. Excellent mix.

Nice production you two!

J&B

THis is really good!! You two make a great team. Really captured that classic folk style. Guitar sounds great and vocal harmonies are awesome! Great job with everything!! Take care. Greg

George, Janice & Bud, and Greg,

Thanks so much for your nice comments. It's indeed a pleasure to work with someone as talented as Joanne. More to come.

Thanks for listening,
Rob

I made a video for this song. It is here

https://youtu.be/STB5aF97S-M

For those who are interested I made the video with creative commons pictures (from google) and an iPhone app called "Quik". The scrolling lyrics were added with a free program called "Youtube Movie Maker". Took me about an hour from start to finish.

Enjoy!

Nice video. It would have been cool to see you hand write the lyrics at the bottom of similar polaroids...

Good point Floyd. Im gonna try something like that with "What we gonna tell our children"....soon...