Jesus On The Mainline

About a week ago I mentioned to floyd jane a public domain gospel song that Janice and I have wanted to work up for a long time. While the origins are not known it's roots thought by some to be with a 1920’s African-American blues and/or spiritual song. Many gospel, rock, Americana, blues and country versions have been done over the years.  Hey, believe it or not, Aerosmith did a version.

The reason for my mentioning it was the group of backup singers, "The Fabulous BIABettes," that floyd always has on 24 hour call...so I wondering if he (amongst floyd/Janice vocals and the BIABettes) could create a gospel choir.

He thought it was worth pursuing so I proceeded with several things in mind - in addition to the choir I wanted to use a slide guitar (lap steel), a piano and an a cappella verse.  I thought the slide would be incongruous with the choir in a positive way.  OK, I stole the idea from Ry Cooder who stole it from AA churches.   I loved David Lindley’s lap steel with Jackson Browne. Oh, and Janice and I tweaked the lyric and wrote one new verse.

At the time I originally wrote this I was not familiar with the "Sacred Steel" tradition in Florida African-American Pentecostal churches. During the 30's some AA churches replaced the organ with the steel guitar and that's where this tradition started. Wiki has some great history on the Sacred Steel. Some of you may be familiar, as I was, with the Robert Randolph Family Band that uses the steel. While they play secular music they clearly came from this tradition. Thanks to Tommyad for cluing me in on this info in his response to this post.

Fast forward --- I put the RTs together with floyd's great choir (created from floyd and Janice vocals with a few of the BIABettes), Janice’s lead/counter vocals and.......I couldn't get it to work and the harder and longer I tried the more disjointed it seemed to sound.  Everything I did seem to step on the choir. Floyd listened and offered to bail me out by remixing the entire project and swapping out several of the Realtracks.  And are we ever glad he did!!!  BTW, he very generously suggested I be considered a co-producer smile   So here ya go.  

Comments are always welcomed and appreciated.  

For those interested there are 30+ tracks when everything you hear is included!

Vocals:  10 Tracks/floyd/janice plus 4 tracks BIABettes
Handclaps: 16 Tracks
RealTracks in song: ~701:Bass, Electric, PopHalfNotesSync Ev 085
RealTracks in song: 1690:Piano, Acoustic, Rhythm PopPromise Ev16 100
RealTracks in song: 1399:Guitar, Electric, Rhythm Soul70sBrightSync Ev16 100
RealTracks in style: 382:Guitar, Slide, Background Blues Ev 085
RealTracks in song: 2110:Horn Section, Background, R&B Ev16 110
RealDrums in Song: NashvilleEven8^7-a,b:Snare, HiHat 

Last edited by Janice & Bud; 01/11/14 07:27 PM.
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