CONVERSION BLUES

Alternate to SoundCloud: Conversion Blues

After several 12 bar blues tunes we decided to have a go at the 8 bar alternative — not the most common but it certainly worked for “Key To The Highway” and many others.

So I wrote some double entrendres for Janice to riff off of and she quickly came up with a melody and even more quickly recorded it. Mr jane kindly offered his new found blues chops again and following a short exchange of messages this is what emerged after mashing up some blues, country and jazz RT's.

Thanks for taking your time to listen and comments are welcomed and appreciated.

Janice & Bud

Vocal: Janice
Guitar Lead: floyd jane

Bass RT 1392 Jazz (diced/spliced to fit my bass player mentality)
Piano RT 2047 Country Swing
Guitar Rhythm 566 Blues
Drums Jazz Brushes

Rodes NT1 mic interfaced to Logic Pro X via Blue Icicle
Mixed in Logic
No mastering (the rare one)
All reverb via Ozone Necter's EMT-140 Plate Emulation

Always eager to hear your latest post. Top notch production and performance and Floyd's lead came in with just the right flavor for the mix. Janice really has the vocals for this type of song. That leaves Bud to do all the rest I guess. Terrific job by every one of you. Enjoyed, enjoyed, enjoyed.

Charlie

Janice and Bud,

Ah sexy little blues number - I wasn't sure what to expect from the title. Nice vocal as always and I especially like the sound of that piano sprinkled in and FJ's guitar. Interesting ending.

Enjoyed it.

Josie

Janice, Bud and floyd

Beautiful vocals as always.
Janice's voice almost has an hypnotic quality,
there's a lovely little riff from the guitar 1.53 which caught my ear.

and "Blues boy" floyd hit the spots.

Alyn

I listened to the song. Interesting song.

Sounds good.... you have the blues style singing pretty much under control.

Hi Janice, Bud and Floyd,

nice collaboration. You have grown into real
blues pros.
Very enjoyable listen.

Guenter

Just a quick "Thanks!" to J&B for asking me to join in on this.
Still just filling in for the real (vacationing) blues guy...

We appreciate that Charlie. Janice's metamorphosis from bluegrass to blues has been really interesting and fun.

Bud




Thank you Josie. We knocked around several names for the tune and that one seemed to stick...as odd as it might seem :-) The ending? Well, Janice asked me my opinion on it for the second and final take....and I just said "go big." She knows I love those country bent note singers so..........

HI ...

We went to listen but Soundcloud said, "oops, sorry. We can't find that track." Will try later.

We've always had a nightmare with Soundcloud. I know many folks here use it and apparently have few or no problems with it. We have problems with it much more often than we don't. We hardly ever post anything there these days.

Looking forward to hearing it. Will try again in a couple of hours.

Alan & Di

Alan - That link works now. Seemed that all of Soundcloud was down for a while...

hEY!

wENT AND LISTENED ON THE ALTERNATE LINK. Wow, that's some sweet blues! Great song and performance by all concerned.

As I was listening to this, (Di's already asleep), I heard a little bit of Susan Tedeshi and, to a lesser degree, Bonnie Rait, in Janice's vocal. That's pretty good company in my book.

Janice doesn;t have the grit in her voice that Bonnie Rait does, but a lot of her intonations are similar. And she has that same subtle hint of swing in her Blues that Susan Tedeshi often does.

And old Floyd is ripping some pretty nice notes on that axe! Not bad for a country boy!!!

That was one sweet listen! Also love how you left the ending unresolved in the five chord. I love it! I sometimes leave my endings in the four chord. But this worked out great with the five! Glad I finally got to listen. Totally loved it! Best to all of you ...

Alan & Di

Another killer tune!! Loved the vocals, the lyrics, the guitar (is there anything that man can't do well?). Really nice job all the way around. Loved it!! Take care. Greg

Thanks Alyn. Janice smiled when she read it. Yes, that guitar riff stood out and when I had to regen the track I saved it and pasted it in the new one.



Thanks Herb. Yep, I do think she has it under control. "Little Ole Thing Called Love" was number one on SoundClick's Jazz Vocal chart for nearly three weeks and that, plus support of forum folks, helped convince her she was making the move from bluegrass to blues work.

You nailed it blues jane -- thanks!

Well done. Great vocal and guitar performances.
Thanks for posting
SD

Thanks y'all. Janice is beaming after being mentioned in the same sentence as those two! Glad you liked the V chord ending. I thought the "is it sexual or religious imagery? conflict I tried to shoot for in the write begged the unresolved ending. Thanks again!!

Thank you Greg. We had a large time doing this one.

Hi, Bud, Janice and Floyd !:))


I also love everything about this
production ! Can´t say it any better
than already said so I just say
congrats to all involved !:))


Cheers
Dani

Hi y'all!

The writing (J&B), Bud's production and Janice's always wonderful singing are the main stuff here... but a little "thanks" to those who made mention of the guitar guy in this 'un....



fj

What a voice (may I please say sexy), LOVE that the vocal was right up front, so clear. Can you imagine if Brit Spears tried that? Guitar work is outstanding.

Very cool! Yes, Janice certainly has the voice for this.
Floyd's guitar is very functional here. I'm especially struck by the clarity of the Jazz Brushes. Sounds very, very clear through my speakers.
Another great one!

Regards,
Rob

Now that's the blues....Great stuff!

Thanks Dani -- we appreciate you.





Thank you, Janice smiled hugely as she read this. Yes you can use the "S" word :-) Thanks for commenting on the mix. I thought the vocal was deserving of being out there in the front. Glad you noted that in a positive way. Love the Brit statement!

Thanks again

Bud

Thanks a Rob. We appreciate your comments very much. I've been using Necter2's reverb module on the drums lately. It's an EMT 140 plate reverb emulation.

Thanks Joanne, yes, the blues!

Ah, yes. Dat's da blues. Just the way I like it. Slow swinging easy like a nice stroll down by the river. Another stellar vocal, write and production. And Preacher man floyd has definitely converted me. Who Knew? After I got over the initial shock, I was able to ride along and what a nice ride it was. First class job by all ! Tom

Great track, smooth as silk vocals, nice groove. Very cool!

Thanks,
Bruce

Thanks Tom! And welcome back. We missed ya.




We appreciate that Bruce.

Hi Janice and Bud,

"Conversion Blues" is songwriting at its awesomnest!

I actually heard this song a long time back (I seem to recall there were lyrics available at that time) and I was struck by just how well written these lyrics and this song were.

Tonight, I sat down and typed the words as I listened to Janice's exquisite vocals. Writing lyrics down by listening is an extremely good test for assessing prosody; in this instance, by prosody, I mean the accuracy with which the syllables of speech align and match musical note-strength. When there's a mismatch, and a syllable is placed on a beat or fraction of a beat that doesn't properly reflect the syllabic strength of how it would be spoken in the phrase, words are often difficult to understand. Every syllable in "Conversion Blues" was expertly aligned!

What struck me most, when I first heard the song and read the lyrics, was the attention to rhyming detail. Three out of the four verses have the first and third lines rhyming with a weak rhyme-type (again/boatman, hill/girl, preacher/river). This gives those lines a sonic connection that holds the lyric together well but doesn't outshine the more definite rhymes for lines two and four (time/line, light/right, soul/whole). This kind of lyric-writing consistency shows great skill!

• Actually, as I'm sitting here thinking about it, the fourth verse (with an American accent) also kind of has the weaker rhyme type for lines one and three with new/you. In Australia, these are perfect rhymes because we say "nyou/you" but in USA-speak, the "noo/you" is not quite perfect.
• That makes four verses out of four verses! Wow! Now THAT'S consistency

Also, the fact that the first line of each of the first three verses (and arguably the fourth verse, too) consists of two short phrases is also the kind of attention to detail that's found amongst the world's top lyricists! You're in great company.

Lastly, even though this song is 8-bar blues (which works incredibly amazingly, by the way), the melody is only 7 bars long. This creates an interesting tension between the balanced feeling of 8 bars of harmony and the unbalanced feeling of 7 bars of melody. Very clever! It got me wondering what this song would sound like as a 7-bar blues. (For what it's worth, The Beatles' "Yesterday" consists of 7-bar verses.)

All in all, as I said at the outset, this is songwriting at its awesomnest!

Definitely inspired on all levels!

All the best,
Noel

P.S. I have to add that floyd's playing is top class; it fits perfectly. He's a man of many talents!

P.P.S. The ending really made me sit up and pay attention. I'm not sure how I feel about it, but then I guess that's the point! It is, indeed, a very interesting sound and one that has grown on me.

Noel, thank you for the nice remarks and for taking your time to write up your observations. I particulary appreciate your remarks about the rhyme structure as I have been working hard at that of late. And I must mention that you and floyd have offered me great guidance with that.

I think that in a lot 8 bar blues that last bar is not sung over so as to provide space for the typical instrumental Blues turnaround which I'm not good at arranging for the RTs to do. I think with some more creative use of chords I could pull it off.

Janice is most appreciative of your comments about the syllables. For a U.S. southern girl to enunciate like that is not easy But above all I realize that her creative melodies and voice make my writes go down easier!

Thank you so much.

Bud