PG Music Home Forums General Discussion User Showcase Here Goes Nuttin'

Let me give you some backstory as well as some production info.

I have made light many times of the fact that I have been married 3 times. I have sworn that I will never do it again. However, there is a wonderful woman here who sings like an angel and writes amazingly deep, sometimes dark lyrics. I totally adore her, and would have LOVED had things gone further. However, she is just not interested in it going further, so in the true spirit of "it is what it is", I wrote this song about that situation. I really am one who can get by on nothing. My "big TV, a satellite dish and a cellular telephone", and as long as I have my dog, I'm good.

BUT.....

"Baby for YOU ya know I'd do it again. (Hands spread open in the what the he** gesture) Here goes nuttin'." Another is the story about that same girl and me wanting her from a distance. Another is about when I quit drinking, another about how I realized to live life to the fullest after a near fatal car accident, one is the story of a girl who moved to LaLa land to find fame and fortune, and came back within 5 years with neither. The rest are pretty much about women who tore my heart out. Thus the title, "Saddle Sores... because sometimes life is a pain in the a**."

Production wise.... it was really one of those things where I just sat down and just hummed a melody in my head as I entered chords into the chord chart (having a good sense of pitch really comes in handy), then rendered out in some bouncy country style (I will see if I still have a reference anywhere to which it might have been). Then I started plopping solos in, the fiddle lick at the head, a little bit of backbeat piano.... that was all straightforward stuff.

Now, as Pat mentioned, the version on the CD has a pedal steel solo in it (And you'll just have to buy the CD to hear it. He's ALWAYS selling, this guy!!!). I went to (I believe) Paul somebody (Franklin? Strickland? I am not by the computer where RB runs.) and generated a solo, and thought "Well, okay" and kept the take. I then generated another. And another. And another. 8 in total. Once I had those solos in place, I started cutting and pasting, like I know you all do. I got those cuts and pastes down to 3 solos, and then cut and paste from there and came up with a MONSTER pedal steel solo. Since that all went down, I played that track for 3 guys in town who play pedal steel. All 3 of them were targets as I was recruiting for a band in case I need to play a release show. All 3 said "I can get close, but I can't play that solo exactly like that. Whoever that is... wow."

From the production/engineering side, I turn that over to my old bandmate who actually does this sort of thing. He prefers Samplitude and has so much experience i it that he is a whiz with that platform. And he has a lot of top quality plug-ins for it. So what went on post production was pretty much out of my hands. My main contribution at his studio was to sing it again and be there to tell him what I liked and what I didn't. He is very good at knowing what kind and how much of stuff. Reverb, compression, etc.... just when to use echo on a vocal.... Glad to have him.

This CD turned out so well that I am now totally jazzed to start the next one.