Ballin' The Jack

Another song written by one of our favorite artists: Trad. Arr. smile So nice of him to fill in when we have writer’s block.

First appearing in the late 1890’s the term “Jack” refers to a steam locomotive and “Balling” meant going full throttle. Later it was referenced in this traditional 1913 song to introduce a new dance. It’s been done by hundreds of artists from early jazz and blues to Judy Garland to Brenda Lee.

We made up an acoustic mashup genre band with 40’s boogie woogie piano, jazz rhythm guitar, rockabilly bass, western swing solo fiddle, fiddle background chops and N’ville drums. smile We also used an early jazzy chord progression and tweaked the lyric a bit and the melody a lot.

Comments are always welcome. Thanks for your time to listen!

Note: As this song is in the public domain (world wide) we own all rights to this arrangement and thus it conforms to PG Music’s ownership protocols.

Tech stuff:

Janice: Vocal > Rodes NT1 mic > Scarlett 212 USB interface > Logic Pro DAW > Logic Pro Channel EQ > Waves CLA Vocals

Bass: RT 2351 Acoustic Rockabilly / Waves Bass Rider > Neutron

Drums: N’ville Hillbilly Swing / Waves CLA Drums

Piano: MIDI SuperTrack 2067 Rhythm 40s Boogie > Logic Pro Grand Steinway > Waves CLA Unplugged > Waves Imager /

Guitar Rhythm: RT 558 Acoustic Jazz > Waves CLA Unplugged

Fiddle Solo: RT 1872 Western Swing (Bluesy) > Waves CLA Unplugged
The last note in solo to vocal segue was changed via Logic Pro’s pitch editor. Thanks to PeterF for the suggestion.

Fiddle Rhythm: RT 1115 Fiddle Country Swing Chops > Waves CLA Unplugged

Mastering: Logic Pro EQ > Waves LinMB > Waves Imager > Waves UltraMaximizer > Ozone Tonal Balance > YouLean Loudness Meter

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