It
ain’t classical, it ain’t blues
But
baby needs a new pair of shoes
Ain’t
too short or too long – this song.
It
ain’t positive, it ain’t dark
It
might ignite a spark
It may
not hit the charts – I still like it – This Song by JWH from the album - “Field Recordings”.
At the end of my first record, See You Around, I had taken the leap
into the state of the art realm of music production—Protools. Of course, all I
could afford was the minimal version called the M Box. My good friend, Chas
Sandford, had been goading me to get into the twenty-first century with my
recording equipment, after all, he had the best and most expensive version of
Protools, all the plug-ins under God’s little sun patched into every
conceivable module of vintage and current gear. That’s why I called him Mr.
Accessory. I purchased a Studiomaster console from him that once belonged to
his late brother, Richard, bought a Blue microphone and now I was all set to
begin my second project, Field Recordings,
which would be my first completely digital record.
From 1937 to 1942, Alan
Lomax was Assistant in Charge of the Archive of Folk Song of the Library
of Congress to which he and his
father and numerous collaborators contributed more than ten thousand field recordings.
He would go down to places like Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee and capture
recordings in a “field” of some of the most renown blues and folk artist of the
era. People such as Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie, Sonny Terry, Pete Seeger and many
other too numerous to mention. I thought by naming my record Field Recordings,
not only would it be a nod to the great Alan Lomax, but it would describe the
simplistic approach I was trying to capture in the record. I hope I succeeded.
I think I did.
It was
difficult at first to point and click my way through the mixing board on the
computer monitor (I had always preferred a hand’s on approach) but the
trade-off of having a plethora of tracks at my disposal was well worth the
learning curve I had to navigate. With more than twenty new songs to choose
from I picked the best ones, in my opinion, and the ones that seemed to
complement each other. I ended up with only nine, but the last song, Monday
Morning Memory is eight minutes and thirty-two seconds. It is a stream of
conscious rant about a typical Monday in the life of James Wesley Haymer. Once again I played all the instruments and
sang all the vocal parts on all the songs on this album. It’s not that I’m
opposed to a band; it just was so hard to get people down to Thompson Station
at the strange hours I’d like to record.
There
was this new website on the internet called Fame Games. It was an online
musical artist competition. You would upload your song and submit it in the
various categories they had available. I did quite well and voted the top
artist in the folk/rock category a few times. It was a great boost for my ego
as well as giving some exposure to fans etc. that would have never had a chance
to hear my music. It’s a shame they are no longer in business. I turned a few
of my friends onto that site and one of them was the infamous Sunset Slim.
Slim is
a character right out of a Damon Runyon novel—the original rambling-gambling
man. I hadn’t seen him in thirty years until a friend, Bruce Bradley, a waiter
at Mario’s, ran into a guy that blew his mind and he began to tell me the
story. He came in to the restaurant dressed in a top hat and tails with a young
beauty in a Kill Bill, Uma Thurman
wig. Slim was telling Bruce how he just got back from Vegas and was in the
running for the World Series of Poker. He was flashing hundreds and ordering
the most expensive things on the menu. He gave Bruce and exorbitant tip, which
made his whole week. The next week he told me about this eccentric guy when we
were playing golf at Harpeth Hills. He described Slim to a T and I knew that I
knew the guy. It could only be one person. In the seventies, I worked with a
guy named Bobby Paine in a boiler room selling toner and office supplies. He
was a character then and after work he said he was recording a county record. I
told him I played guitar and keyboards and he told me to come down to the
session. I played a cool Hammond B-3 part on a song called Honky-tonk Hell and he gave me a crisp hundred dollar bill for my
efforts.
I told
Bruce the next time the guy came into the restaurant to give him my number. I
got a call a few days later and I knew it was him. Who else could it be? He was
living in Nashville now with Jeannie, the girl from the restaurant who is at
least thirty years his junior. Not too bad. I never knew that Slim and I had so
much in common (my wife is 12 years younger than me.) Not only is he a talented
singer/songwriter whose songs are a real throwback to the days when country
music was real and the songs were about trains, card games, heavy drinking and
cheating (his pictured album All Bets Are
Off is really worth a listen), he is a very accomplished golfer. Now we
play music and gold together (more golf than music these days). We have a bet
called a Nassau where the winner of the front nine gets five bucks, the winner
of the back nine also gets five and if you win the overall score it’s another
fiver. We usually end up with the same score (somewhere in the mid to high
seventies). Slim always wears the most expensive golf outfits and sometimes
they are, well let me just say, they are a statement. I once asked Jim, the
starter for Greystone Golf Club (a place we frequent) if Slim had arrived yet.
Jim rolled his eyes and said. “Oh yeah, you can’t miss him.” He was right. Slim
was wearing yellow and green paisley long pants (I’ve never seen the guy wear
shorts even on 90-100 degree days) and a purple silk shirt with some outrageous
chapeaux on his head to compliment the get-up. I think he dressed like that to
distract his opponents. I can testify that it works. You could write a book
about the guy and someday I might just do that. I did write a song called The Ballad of Sunset Slim, and it got
some play on Fame Games.
Another
track on Field Recordings called For Elise,
is a bluesy/folk version of Beethoven’s Für
Elise (who I give co-writing credit). It contains some Hamlet inspired
lyrics. From the exposure on Fame Games, I (after sending out hundreds of CDs)
got lots of airplay in Europe, Australia and even the good ole USA. I thought
things were finally going in the right direction in my career again.
Here is
a sample of the lyrics some in For Elise:
Someone call an ambulance, forget man you’d
better call a priest.
Guess I got to get it off my mind then I’ll
go in peace.
You know that there was poison in wine just
look in my valise.
Everything I did, I did for love and for
Elise.
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