Yellow Flower

Janice’s brother, a fine rock guitarist and singer, wrote this song during the late 60's when his little sister was in middle school. Then about 15 years ago I recorded a version of it with the two of them and the great fiddler and multi-instrumentalist Randy Howard. We thought it might be fun to do a BIAB version and see what we could come up with. Her brother gave us a carte blanche on whatever style we wanted which was good as I didn’t want to do something up front he would not be comfortable with.

Given the sort of hippy vibe that the lyric has we decided to see what RT’s might give that feel. So....we had to dig through a lot of genres. I wanted a flute and was surprised to see that there is only one flute RT and it is a Bossa track -- what the heck. I cut and spliced it many times and perhaps it works to your ear. The title Yellow Flower made me think of the southwest so I threw in an accordion -- sorta TexMex like. Then we found some Latin percussion that we thought might help...You know, dancers twirling through the meadow stuff at a pop festival. Anyhow we stirred the pot, this is what we got and it may or may not work but it was fun. Thanks for tuning in.

RTs: Bass 684, Accordion 1752, Flute 704, Guitars 509/896 & Drums 68
Vocal: Janice via Rode NT1 mic interfaced to IMac with Blue Icicle and mixed in GB.

Cool mashup of instruments and styles....

I'm not sure the accordion works but then again others may like it. I does have that hippy vibe to it... reminds me of the song White Bird in some ways. Probably the flute.

Nice job.

First thought was the bold font size of the post that almost put me off listening!!!
I agree with Guitarhacker about the accordion but the rest of the instruments seemed to fit perfectly.

Janice does have a lovely voice, tho' and I would love to hear the song with just the flute, guitars and percussion.

Alyn

ps Thank you!

Beautiful voice and an excellent song A great combination

I'm having "the Soundcloud problem" with your file. Even though I can play everyone else's. You would think they would figure that out and fix it!

"I'll be back..."

first of all, I want to say "excellent splice job" on the flute! It doesn't sound like a bossa flute at all, and really does a good job of capturing the hippie vibe I think you were going for.... reminded me somewhat of the flute in Eric Burdon's song "spill the wine"

I don't normally associate "tex-Mex" with the hippie era, but the accordion works for me anyway... I just chalk it up to your amazing ability to splice genres as easily as you splice tracks.

There's more to say, but I've got to be somewhere else in a few minutes, so, sorry for cutting this short. I'll conclude by saying that I liked it a lot

Hi Janice and Bud,

I like the way you "stirred the pot". The accordion is ok with me. And naturally I must mention Janice's beautiful voice.
By the way: You forgot to listen to my latest song. What a pity.

Guenter

Janice & Bud,

I will need a couple more listens before I know how I feel about the instrumentation, but only one listen sold the lyric and the vocal.

Later,

Herb & Alyn, thanks! Glad it worked for you re the feel we were working for. I'm the same way on the accordion. I tried the accordion, then a B3 and then went back to the accordion. Just dunno.

Scott, thanks a lot. Janice is appreciative of your comments regarding her voice. Venturing out from our years of bluegrass has been quite an experience!

Hi, Janice & Bud !:))

This is very good !
Tell me can I hear some creole sounds
here ?
I liked your tune and performance really much !

Cheers
Dani

"Yellow Flower" most definitely has a 60's sound to it. There was so much musical "cross-pollination" going on at that time!

The flute and the acccordion accompaniments make the song sound charming, "innocent", and sweet, even as the chord changes add a certain rueful feel -- maybe even a sense of loss -- to the whole thing.

The arrangement sounds like something Jimmy Webb, or George Tipton (the arranger for Jose Feliciano's debut album, “¡Feliciano!” on RCA) would have done, only Mr. Tipton would have added a bed of lush strings, too.

A word on the lyrics -- they're gorgeous! "Yellow flower, I lost you to time"..."Sweet smell on my mind"..."Painted sky and rainbow forest”...very -- and very properly! -- "trippy", and also reminiscent of the budding earth consciousness of the era, with Ms. Janice’s “la-la-lahs” adding that blissful, wistful, care-free sound that made the 60’s seem like such a hopeful time.

“Yellow Flower” is very nostalgic. Thanks for the trip on your musical time machine, folks! Excuse me while I dig up my banadana, my tied-dyed jeans, and my sandals, now...

bluage

GROOVY!

Everything here works great IMHO. I really liked the accordion and flute and the mix was spot on as usual.

The lyrics were super and Janice’s vocal was outstanding, again as usual.

Keep up the great work!

Flower power, I really liked bluage's comments. Very trippy vibe. I too would dig up my sandals and bandanna but I've already got them on. Like Pat said the flute sounds like that Eric Burden song. Great editing and recording. Like always, Janice's vocal is impeccable. A very creative piece of work to say the least. It brightened my mood. Thanks, Tom

Pat, thanks a bunch. We are very happy that you liked the flute! It was a bit tedious putting the snippets together. What worries me when I do that is that it might sound musical but might not be something a flautist could actually do! Gotta go and listen to that Eric Burdon song. I remember it vaguely. Always liked him. Yep, the accordion is strange....it was just a result of my imagery of southwestern yellow flowers that brought it on.

Guenter, glad you like the "pot stirring" and thanks for the kind words re Janice's vocal.

Danny, thanks for listening. Hope the instrumentation will work for you. I'm still equivocal!

Dani, thank you! We threw so much in there that you might be hearing something creole....

Bluage, we really appreciate you taking the time for those remarks. It is really cool that you could relate to the time and place that we were attempting to portray. I find it cool that Janice singing a song her brother wrote 45 years ago can put you on that time machine, Thanks!!

Janice and Bud,

Another testimony to your versatility! As always, Janice, your voice shines in this one. Great use of diverse RealTracks. I think the accordion works for me.

I like this one, but I can't recall not liking any of your songs.

Steve

I love the chord changes. The instruments chosen show great imagination!

I am late to the party. Better late than never. Very Well done. The instrumentation is very interesting.

Y'all are just checking off genre after genre... "Yea, we do that one to perfection... what's next?" 60's - check.

Bud - you're gettin' like some mad scientist... "If I mix a little of this... with a little this...oooohhh... that's interesting!!! HaHahaHAhahaHah!!!!" (<<< maniacal laugh).

Of course, it almost doesn't matter how your cake turns out... You get to top it with the icing that is Janice's incredible vocal. You can't go wrong.

Cool sound on this. Can't wait to see what's next!

floyd

Thanks Steve, glad you liked it. Diverse Realtracks are fun!

Floyd, yeah man, Janice's singing is gonna almost always bail me outa getting to "out there" on a production. Gives me room to stretch out some for sure.

Gruverider, thanks for that. Her bro did write some cool changes.

Thanks Joanne, glad you liked it!

Hi there Janice and Bud.

Beautiful song.

I actually liked the accordion. I felt it under-pinned everything and lent some continuity and flow to the backing. The only thing I wasn't sure about was that at times I felt the flute was getting in the way of Janice's brilliant vocal.

Don't get me wrong, I liked the flute a lot, but at times it was there when all I wanted was Janice. (Can I say that?)

But that's a minor point and the song is great, including a good mix and production.

ROG.

Hi Janice and Bud,

O my goodness! That took me by surprise. I had to scroll up to see that I was actually in the right thread.

I love the chords, the song is fantastic and Janice's vocals are as cool and as laid-back as I've ever heard. It was like I could hear the sea in the background. I don't know how you convinced my brain to add that effect in but you did!

To my ears, the chord progression had some really nice quirky and unexpected chord successions. It's very creative! The vibe reminded me at times of Bobby Goldsboro's songs. I'm a huge fan of his work. Mind you, I'm probably much more of a fan of your work

This is fantastic! I heartily congratulate everyone involved.

All the best,
Noel

hi Janice and bud excellent vocal love your voice Janice well done I think you did a great job with instruments excellent mix and piecing this together bud great use of biab thanks guys for sharing eric

Thanks ROG,

Thank you so much for commenting on Janice's vocal, the mix and production. I was ambivalent about leaving the flute through that part of the chrous and I may drop it down some instead of completely removing it when I take another look at the mix. Thanks for pointing that out. And, yes, you can say that!

Noah, thanks for all your comments and for mentioning the chord changes. I'll pass that on to Janice's brother. Hey, I went to high school in a town that was about 30 miles from Bobby Goldsboro's home. I used to see him play local gigs back then. Thanks again!

Eric, thank you. Yep, that one took an odd mixture of RT's and some tedious mixing. I'm happy it worked for you!