If you had asked me a month ago if this song was PD, I'd have said "no". But I would have been wrong. I forget where I heard that it was. Since it is, and since chord progressions and riffs are not copyrightable either, I figured I would just go ahead and resurrect this tune....like I would play it with my band.

The song is called When the Levee Breaks by Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe McCoy about the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. It affected 26,000 square miles of land up to 30 feet deep displacing tens of thousands of people.

This song took several weeks and a bit of work to get it done. Here's the particulars.

2 different styles: Slide country Blues gets it started and then it changes to Sawmill Moody Grunge.
There are 22 plugs of different kinds in this project.
I think there's about 16 tracks or so....
Part 1 tracks:
Bass 1849
Finger pick Guitar 364
Dobro 2010
Drums: Jamstix
Guitar: Tele with the Quilter DA. Clean... kind of....

Part 2: This part hits harder than most of the covers of this song. It was fun.
Bass: 1417
B3 688
Harmonica: 4266
Drums: Jamstix
All Guitars: Tele with Quilter DA on a variety of settings. Looking for that classic crunch.

Drums were programmed manually for the most part and edited as needed. Influences..... well, see what you think. There's a few I was trying to channel in various sections of the song.

6:36 running time.

When The Levee Breaks


Turn it up as needed. A few other notes about the recording.

I was going for "live feel" like at a concert. I was hoping to make this with a virtual band of sorts but that didn't materialize. Three people were invited to participate but schedules and life got in the way. Looks like they missed out on the party. Maybe the next time huh?

As you listen, a lot of the accents and riffs were programmed into BB using the micro chord function and it worked exceedingly well.

I don't think it's necessary to post the lyrics.... everybody knows this song, right?

BTW: I had a total blast playing these guitars on this. My favorite thing to do.....

As always, enjoy and... feel free to comment or not.

100% organic, except for BB, No AI was harmed in the production of this classic.

You can find my music at:
www.herbhartley.com
Add nothing that adds nothing to the music.
You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both.

The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.