RLJ - Pro Tools direct to disc through a tube pre amp and one microphone. On all but one track I overdubbed parts. The point of this recording is not about virtuosity but content and concept. I have spent too many years having the reputation as the axe slinger doing the "impossible thing" on the guitar...it was time to think and feel my way for a change.
I used no effect pedals or other electronic devices except an ebow. Every thing you hear on this cd comes directly from the old National guitar.
Connect - Did you operate the recording equipment yourself, or was there someone there to help you?
RLJ - All alone.
Connect - The record has what seems like an intentionally "otherworldly" feel to it, which is pushed along by the timber of the dobro, and certainly the swampy, bluesy visions that timber conjures up - and yet, this is not what most people would think of as a blues record. Is this "your" blues record?
RLJ - This is a sonic tone poem realizing a myth. A musical interpretation of a fictionalized character based on certain historic facts moving through time and space.It is not a blues record. I was born and raised very near where a lot of the actual blues history in this country originated, I was living in the place but engaged in the process, if you know what I mean...sort of like parallel worlds.
Connect - I hear echoes of the instrumental work of the French-Canadian composer and producer Daniel Lanois. Are you familiar with his atmospheric and ambient work on the guitar, dobro and pedal steel?
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