I met with The Southern Backtones today to work on an updated version of the 1958 (!) hit record: 'Talk to Me' by James O'Gwynne. this is for a tribute CD that SugarHill Studios is doing to commemorate 60 years in the business. The CD will include updated versions of hit records recorded at SugarHill during the past 6 decades.

Anyway,.. I have engineered the last two records for the Backtones, but have never produced them from the get go, so this song is a real treat. The band brought some real textural, spacey material to the table as references, (most notably, the new Beck CD). Now this is very interesting in light of the fact that this song is a straight, missionary-position country classic. They could have gone rock-a-billy, but instead, want to stake out some higher ground for the song. Hell, yeah!

We came up with a game plan at rehearsal to cut a 'live drum loop' with their new drummer, Todd. Mike will layer a super fundamental bass line, (go Mike), and then we will get busy with guitars, and hopefully, some very unusual instruments. We kicked around the ideas of calliope, (sampled unless someone out there has on original), mandolin, treated B3 organ. Further departures from the path of music rightousness, include backwards guitar, and backwards vocals. John and Hank will sketch out some vocal ideas, and I plan to make some sort of instrumental appearance as well. We'll book time tomorrow. As usual, I am pumped!