STATE LINES

Janice wanted a break from our more bluegrass based songs so we wrote and recorded this tune over the last few days. There was a time shortly after leaving our bluegrass band when we would get together with some folks who could play blues, country and a little jazz. We'd mostly jam on 12 bar songs with me on bass and Janice playing mandolin. I tried to recreate a bit of this vibe with these disparate RealTracks.

For Janice it was a bit like stepping off a cliff for she wanted her vocal to have more of a jazz/blues sound than her typical sound (but her voice will always be somewhat anchored in our bluegrass/americana world). I wrote some lyrics and she quickly came up with a melody. The song is in a traditional blues AAB format. I sent an mp3 to Floyd Jane to see what he thought about it and I was pleased that he liked the song. He suggested that we modify the second "A" line to vary slightly from the first line (they are often identical in traditional blues). We incorporated his suggestions and it definitely added some more interest to the stanzas and let Janice stretch out a bit more vocally. We also added a solo between stanza 3 & 4. Ramble, ramble, blah, blah -- here's what we used. Thanks for listening!

Vocal: Janice, Rodes NT1 mic interfaced to iMac via Blue Icicle.
Bass: A paste up of sections of Realtrack 1394 Simple Jazz.
Drums: RealTrack Nashville 1281
Guitar Rhythm 1: RealTrack 1795 Dixieand
Guitar Rhythm 2: RealTrack 968 Country Swing
Piano Rhythm: Real Track 2047 Country
Piano Lead: RealTrack 1884 Country
Mixing and effects: GarageBand interfaced with BIAB

The lead and rhythm tracks were repeatedly regenerated and cut/spliced together (often by the 1/4 measure) to try and add the bluesy feel albeit with mostly country tracks.

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