September 13, 2005: New Song Added! "Love May Be Blind"

Well, it's been months since I've posted, and I apologise! The past seven months (!) have been quite busy, and some of that time has been soaked up with all things summer (festivals, extra gigs than just the usual weekend stuff, etc.), and we just haven't been doing a whole lot on the writing front. Until two weeks ago. We finally got a chance to get into the rehearsal room and write. What came of the past two sessions is a little something we like to call "Love May Be Blind (but the neighbors see everything)".

"Love May Be Blind" came from a phrase Jon had said to me probably about a year ago. He told me that his mom always said, "Love may be blind, but the nieghbors aren't." That kind of stuck with me as a catchy kind of phrase, and it hung out in my sub-consience for a while. After a few days of mulling it over, and working on some lyric ideas as I drove the delivery van for my day job, I came up with this:

Love may be blind but the
Neighbors see ever'ything
Love may be blind but the
Neighbors see ever'ything
You better listen when they tell you
Your angel's got a broken wing

You say that she's there
Every time you call
You say that she's there
Every time you call
But brother there's another
Mule kickin in your stall!

You think her love is true
Pure as the driven snow
You think her love is true
Pure as the driven snow
It's as pure as a puddle o' mud
Just thought that you should know

I've thrown this into "Got My Mojo Workin" a few times, and it seemed to work with that sort of up-tempo beat. It should, since I took the basic vocal pattern from an old Son House rendition of Robert Johnson's "If I Had Possession Over Judgement Day", and they use the same kind of rhythm pattern. (if you're gasping at the fact that I "stole" this idea, check out my earlier post on that subject) Jon put a guitar thing modeled after "It Ain't Right" by Little Walter and "Gimme Back My Wig" by Hound Dog Taylor. The song is only a couple of minutes long, and it only has to be that long, really. Some songs are by nature 15 minutes long because the artist has that much to say with it. On the other hand, others may only be 3 minutes. We were really trying to go for a more "old school" feel for this tune, and most of the old Chicago blues tunes of the early days were only 3 munites long. The solo section was only one verse long, and features both Charlie and Jon by having them alternate solos within the verse structure. Plainly said, Charlie starts out by playing for four bars, then Jon comes in for four, and Charlie finishes it off. It came out for people to hear last weekend in Charlevoix and Boyne City. It was well received, but it needed a little something. What the French call a certain "I don't know what." So we took it back into the rehearsal room last week and started "tweeking."

First, we decided it needed a cool intro. Jon suggested a guitar-harp unison part mimicing the vocal melody. He and Charlie worked this out, and it added a nice element to the song. It helped introduce the main melody, as well as set up the solo section. The only thing left was a better intro. After a few attempts at something other than coming in on the turn-around, we decided to try something with some big, held-out chords. As the experiment continued, we tried one idea after another, trying to find the big cool intro. Finally, we came up with "it." We start off with a slower, train-style drum part, while AJ, Jon and Charlie all hit a big held-out chord. Repeat the process again, but build the tempo on the drums. Once more, and hit the chord more rapidly, accenting the speed-up, and WHAM! we're in the song, with Jon and Charlie crahing into the guitar-harp melody, and holy cow, is this awesome! Now, we have a song, not just a cool idea.

This weekend will be the unveiling of the new and improved version of "Love May Be Blind," let's hope everyone else thinks it's as cool as we do!

Progress Report, March 6, 2005

March 6, 2005...

As of today, we have 6 songs we are playing out; "Daddy", "Michigan Avenue", "Texas Cannon Ball", "Let's Have a Good Time", "The End of the Night", and "She's So Fine." Of these, we have recorded "Daddy" only, but we'll be hitting the studio very soon to record "Michigan Avenue" and "She's So Fine." So, let's talk about the stuff we haven't discussed yet, namely "Good Time" .

Let's Have A Good Time.
Here's the lyrics:

verse 1
Well, it feels so good
Bein' here with you
Never seems enough time
To do all the things we wanna do
Seems like we say hello
And then our time is through

verse 2
I hope we made ya happy
I hope we made you smile
Hope you had some fun
Hope you had a good time
Cause you made us feel at home
You made us feel oh so fine

bridge
Hey everybody
Do you feel that way too
(repeat)
Let's have a good time
Just me an you
Hey evey body
Everybody clap your hands
(repeat)
Lets have a good time
While we can

(guitar solo)

verse 3
Did we make you happy
Did we make you smile
Did you have some fun
Did you have a good time
You made us feel right at home
You made us feel oh so fine

verse 4
Cause it feels so goos being here with you
Nobody treats us
Quite like you do
There seems enough time
To do all the things we wanna do

(repeat bridge)

(harp solo)

The general feel of this song was brought in by Jon as just a little guitar thing he wanted to work on, and possibly flesh out into a song. As I've said before, this is just one of the ways we come up with songs; Jon has a guitar melody and I put some lyrics to it, or I bring in lyrics and have him put the music to them. The music reminds me of BB King's "Woke Up This Morining." It has a bouncy kind of feel and made me think of trying to come up with a good end of the show song where we thank you guys for coming, and get wound up one more time before we go home. As with the BB King tune, this song changes feel for the bridge into a straight shuffle. The guitar and harp solo over this progression, and when the guitar solo is over, we go back to the opening riff, and the verse melody again.

After the last time through the bridge, we go into a harp solo. After twice through the progression, we use a part we heard Rod Piazza do in one of his tunes when we opened for him on New Year's Day this year. It uses some cool stop-n-go time, and winds up into a more jazzy, swing feel, where the harp continues to solo. As we go through a few times on this jazzy swing, we increase the volume and intensity of the progression, building back into the bridge's original feel. After a couple of false endings, we come back to the same stop-n-go feel to close the song. When we record, we're thinking of coming back into the song by way of a drum build-up on the snare, bringing in the whole band again, including vocals. After once or twice through, we fade out, and end the song that way.

Here is a perfect example of the "borrowing" I talked about before. We took the feel and structure of a BB King tune, threw in an idea from Rod Piazza, and made them our own. If you were to listen to recordings of the two ideas we used, you would hear the similarites, and also see where we put our own stamp on them.

For a while now, I've wanted to write a song that we could close a show with. Kind of wrap it all up, say good night, let the guys play some really cool stuff, and close with a bang. I also wanted it to say something to the effect of "Thanks for coming, we hope you had a good time." "Good Time" is becoming that song. We're still "tweeking" the fine points, like the length of some of the end parts, the dynamics (how loud or soft we play), and things like that, but it's shaping into a pretty good little song. Not a Top 10 hit, but something we put at the end of the night to close the show. when we play the song live, before singing the last two verses, we bring it down. At this point, I introduce the members of the band, say good night, and then ask those questions, "Did we make you happy?/ Did we make you smile?" etc., and then one more time we bring it up and crash into the last bridge and finally the end section. Charlie gets the big work-out here,as he's soloing through all the end stuff, the false endings, the jazzy swing, everything.

So that's "Let's Have A Good Time." Listen for it the next time we're at a watering hole near you, and next time, I'll talk about some new stuff we're working on.

First Studio Date, Feb, 2005

So, now it starts...

Our first studio date was on Wednesday, February 9, 2005. We went in to kill two birds with one stone; First, to record the first song of the new album, "Daddy." This was, up until the day of recording, called, "She Calls Me Daddy," but Jon suggested shortening the title to not give any "sexual" connotations to the title. Our second objective was to get a final "demo" version to submit to local radio station, WKLT, for consideration for their Northern Michigan Rocks compilation album. This, for those of you outside our local area, is an annual record put out by a local radio station that features local talent, and is played on-air, thereby giving all of us some exposure in the Northern Michigan market, and is also submitted to the various record labels KLT deals with.

We recorded the song, as we have recorded most of our material, at Jay Star Recordings in Gaylord, MI. The owner/engineer is Jim Tobin. Jim is a fine recording engineer, with great ears, a nice, laid-back way of dealing with things, and a great sense of humor. All of these things are definitely needed when dealing with a group like Mojo. We found Jim when the original studio we were working with for our first record went out of business. Jim has since been our "go-to guy" for recording MATB albums, and I can't think of anywhere in Northern Michigan I'd rather go for recording our stuff.

We use a 2" reel-to-reel analog tape machine at Jim's. This was what we used to record our last record, got mojo?, and we were really pleased with the sound the analog tape gives us. Analog is the medium used for the "old school" recordings up until the advent of digital recording systems. Some folks like the crispness of the digital media, and record all their stuff completely and totally digital. This is great for hip-hop, classical, modern rock, and the like, but for blues, soul, jazz, and styles in that vein, the analog sound is warmer and more "natural" sounding. Really it all boils down to a question of preference.

In the past, we have recorded all the parts, but only concerned ourselves with getting a usable drum and bass track on the first time around for each song. Everyone played, but the emphasis was on getting the drums and bass as we wanted them for the final version of the song. All other parts would be "layered" on later. This has worked for us, but we could never be very spontaneous within the songs. Once the rhythm tracks were down, the soloists had to keep their parts within the confines of those tracks. If Jon, Charlie, or I wanted to extend or shorten a certain section, we couldn't, because the rhythm track dictated what was going to happen. The same is true for any use of dynamics (making the music quieter or louder for emotional/dramatic effect). Once the drums and bass were down, the dynamics were set in stone as well. The other down-side to this approach was that the drummer and bassist are trying for a "keeper" take, and the rest of us knew our tracks were what are referred to as "scratch" tracks. In other words, the drummer and bassist were trying to play their very best stuff, and the guitar wasn't really "dialed in" right, I may not have sang the song to my best ability, and the whole group wasn't really going for a "take." This gives those that are trying for that keeper track nothing, or at least very little, to draw from for inspiration, leaving the tracks wanting for a little more "sparkle" for lack of another word.

This time around, we decided to try to record as much of the band "live" as possible. Jon, AJ, and Bill were all in the main recording room of the studio, with Charlie in the hallway outside the control room, and me in the control room with Jim. Jon's amp was set up in the isolation room (aka the "iso" room, or the "closet"), AJ and Bill set up in the main part of the main studio with a big piece of cardboard separating the bass amp and the drum to reduce what is known as "bleeding" of the tracks. You want as little bleeding as possible with the tracks, so if you want to increase the volume of, say, the snare drum, you're not bringing in the bass and guitar with it as well. A good amount of separation is needed for the final mixing of the song. Charlie was blowing into the Neuman mic that Jim uses for recording vocals, as this tune wasn't going to need an amp-driven harp sound. We were going for more of a country-blues sound on this tune, and the harp sounds great acoustically. Mine was the only track that would be a definite scratch track. That didn't mean I could lay down on the job and save myself for later when I got to put my final vocal track down. No, I needed to give the guys as much to work with as possible, so that I had the best tracks possible to work with later for my part.

Now, before, when we went for just a good drum track, we only had to worry about getting the drums recorded right for the take. This time, we were trying to get everyone to get a good take at the same time, which can much more difficult. We went through two tries of the tune, and on the third we hit the keeper. There are some things that could have been done better (I won't tell you what they are), and some that one guy or another thought they could have been done differently, but all-in-all, the track had the right sound, feel, and groove we were looking for.

Some bands look for the "perfect" take to commit to tape. The part has to be played exactly like the player had in mind or it has to be re-done. For Mojo & the Boogieman, we go with the philosophy, "If it feels good, it is good." This means that, while the part may not have been the what the player had in mind, if the overall feel or mood of the part is good, then that's a take, and we move on. If Jon plays a run and the third note isn't quite there, but the sound makes everyone happy, we'll keep the part. If the fourth note is a little flat, but it gives the part a unique sound without sounding out-right wrong, we keep it. If the tempo of the song speeds up in one section, and then slows down in another, as long as the feel isn't thrown off, it stays. That being said, we went with the "feel good" philosophy for our third take of "Daddy."

After the guys got their parts down, we set the Nueman back up in the main studio area, and recorded a little bit of what Quincy Jones calls "ear candy." Listen to one of your favorite tunes. Do you hear some maracas shaking in the background? Maybe some congas or a tamborine? That's ear candy. It's not an intregal part of the song, but it accentuates the tune a little. Think of all those Motown tunes. Listen to the tambourine. Not really needed, but if it wasn't there, you'd know. Ear candy. Our ear candy was a little shaken percussion to accent the shuffle beat used for the tune. It has a kind of "clip-clop" , lazy feel to it, so I put some accents to that feel with something called a "One Shot." basically, this is a maraca that only sounds once when shaken. Instead of the "shicka-shicka" sound, it's "shick, shick." The second half of the shake is dampened inside the instrument. Now, this is something you really have to listen for, but it does accent the shuffle groove of the song nicely. After running through the song once with a couple of stops for me get back with the rhythm of the song, we went back and cleaned up a few spots I got off track by "punching in" the fixes. This is a process where the engineer hits the "record" button, and only records a small bit of part, recording over a mistake or an unwanted section. You "punch in" at the beginning of the part, play the new part, and then "punch out" after the new part has been recorded, leaving the track the same before and after. So a couple of punches, and the ear candy was in place!

Next, it was time for vocals. We ran through the song once, and got a good vocal track. Jim always teases me that he makes no money off me, because I am fortunate enough to be able to do my vocal tracks in one or two takes. Since he charges by the hour, I kind of help reign in the budget. The only thing I needed to fix was the very last line of the last verse. I had come up with a part on the way to the studio that night, and as we were recording the other tracks, I kept trying it out, and fine-tuning it, so when it was my time, I could do it right. Unfortunately, I needed one more pass at it before it came out right. The first time around, I didn't really commit to the part, and it came out sounding kind of weak and strained. So, we punched in the last line, and voila! "Daddy's" done! Now, all we have to do is mix...

mixing is the process of getting all the instruments in the right space and at the right volume within the song. For blues, the drums should be in the background, with snare just a bit above the other drums, and the kick (or bass) drum has a nice "boom" to it. You don't want a hip-hop "thud" here, or a heavy metal flat "whacking" sound. Just a nice, round sound out of it. The tom-toms are panned extreme left and right to give the stereo feel, and the cymbals are given the same treatment. Next, the bass comes in, and kind of fills the space between the drums and other instruments. The bass is not actually mixed in the "center" of the sound space, it just kind of fills the middle ground. After that, bring in the guitar. The guitar should be closer to the front of the sound space, same for the harp. The trick here is not cluttering up your sound, but keeping everything evenly spaced, so the listener can hear each instrument individually and pick out the subtleties of each part. Finally, the vocal is added in the center of it all, and just on top of everything else. You have to be careful not to put the voice too far out front, or it sounds like the singer is singing right in front of you, and the band is three doors down and to the right, near the Men's room. The ear candy gets tucked just inside it all, so that you can hear it if you listen for it, but it isn't out front screaming, "HEY! Listen to this! Isn't it cool!?!?"

The other concern with mixing is equalization, or "EQ." This is controlling the high, mid, and low frequencies within the song, as well as the frequencies of the instruments. If your mix is too heavy on the high frequencies, it sounds "tinny" and thin. If the bass frequencies are too high, then it sound muffled, or as we like to say, "muddy." If the mid-range frequencies get too far out, then the sound is something like listening over a telephone line or maybe two tin cans and a string. The old "garbage in, garbage out" philosophy comes into play here, too. If the original tracks are recorded poorly, then there's not a lot you can do to fix it with EQ. As Jon likes to say, "You can't polish a turd." So, you have to have a good recording of the track before you even start to mix, or you're in for a long, frustrating night. Fortunately for us, we have an engineer with wonderful ears that can dial this stuff in just right, and mix it well, too. After three-and-a-half hours of work, we were rewarded with a final mix of "Daddy," and on our way to having a new Mojo album for you guys very soon. Just think about 12 or 14 more songs to go!

IS IT REALLY STEALING?

This time around, I want to talk about how I get my ideas, and how Mojo uses influences and ideas from other sources. In the blues, the same lyric ideas, chord progressions, even titles are borrowed by different musicians. Keb Mo uses a BB King line in his song "Perpetual Blues Machine". It's the line; "My mother says she loves me/But she could be jivin', too." This is more common in the blues and jazz world than in other music genres that I've heard. A soloist might even quote a part of someone else's solo or melody in their solo. This isn't looked at as stealing, it's more of a sign of appreciation. It's kind of like saying; "Hey, man, I really dig that line you used, so I'm gonna throw it in my tune, too."

Now, that's not to say if I write a song, and then 10 years down the road, somebody just took the song, note-for-note, that that's alright. It has to do with the tradition of the blues. Many of the interviews and biographies and autobiographies I've read on my favorite blues musicians all say the same thing. The new guy talks to the old pro, and the old pro tells the new guy to take the music "further than where you found it." In other words; go ahead and use the ideas of those who came before you, just make sure to put some of yourself in there as well. Don't do my thing exactly like I did it. Do something new to it. A good example is the work Eric Clapton has done with his last album, Me and Mr. Johnson. On this record, he does a bunch of tunes by the late Robert Johnson, thought by many as the "King of the Delta Blues" and one of Clapton's biggest influences. On this record, it isn't just rehashing old Delta blues tunes with Clapton playing a bottle neck slide and singing. Instead, Eric brought in a group of some of the best musicians around like Jerry Portnoy (former harp player for Muddy Waters as well as a fine solo performer) and Billy Preston (the "Fifth Beatle" and world-famous keyboard player), to name just two. With a full band of two guitars, drums, bass, keys, and harp, they take the old Robert Johnson standards and give them a whole new sound, while still maintaining that old, Delta feel. Clapton is a master at this art of creating new takes on the old material.

A good analogy is how we as human beings first learn to talk. We imitate those around us, and slowly we develop our own speech pattern. It's uniquely our own, but it still has bits and pieces of all those people we have heard in the past and those we are hearing today. Our slang changes not only as the years go by, but as we come into contact with different people. A friend of mine moved was born and raised in Northern Michigan, and when he was in his early 30's, moved to Tennessee. After a year of living in the South, he came back home for a visit with a brand new way of talking, complete with southern drawl and new slang terms.

The same goes for musicians. We soak up all the music we've heard since we were born, storing it up for later use. From all the nursery rhymes we heard, to the songs on "Sesame Street," to the "School House Rock" songs, to the Pop music of our youth, to present day- all that just floating around, waiting to come out. So, one day, that musician is writing a song about waiting for his baby like "a bill on Capitol Hill" or telling some girl he'll be her "Gangster of Love". Some blues writers have turned nursery rhymes into songs; like Buddy Guy doing "Mary Had a Little Lamb," or Rufus Thomas singing about "Mary, Mary, quite contrary" in "Walking the Dog." Some of these things are premeditated, others just come out. Is it stealing? Well, yes and no. It's just drawing on past experience for a lyric idea.

As for the instruments, the same applies. Now, in blues, there's a couple of standard beats used for many of the song forms. There's shuffles, and these are usually referred to by the regional style that they're used in. A Chicago shuffle sounds different from a Texas shuffle. There's a swing beat that is used in a lot of "jump" blues. Different drummers have their own way of doing these beats, and may use the same type of beat in different songs, subtly altering them to fit the mood of the song. Guitarist use a lot of the same patterns for songs as well. Again, there's a Chicago-style pattern used by the likes of Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf, and Willie Dixon. There's a Texas sound, a West Coast sound, a Kansas City sound, too. Each player plays these same rhythm patterns in their own way, giving them their own "voice." You know when Eric Clapton is playing a song without anyone telling you who it is on guitar. Same of Stevie Ray, Jimi Hendrix, all the great musicians had their own style of playing that is unique to them, even though they may have played the same songs. This how they moved the song "further."

As for Mojo & the Boogieman, we've done the same thing. We've drawn on all our past musical experiences, and used that to cerate our own sound; Northern Michigan Blues. It's part rock n roll, part blues, part soul, part funk, all mixed together. My lyrics are a combination of original ideas and phrases and melodies I have borrowed as well. In our song "Angle Blues" from our first disc, I patterned the lyric after BB King's "Sweet Little Angle." BB's goes,

"I've got a sweet little angle
I love the way she spreads her wings
When spreads her wings around me
I get joy in everything"

My lyric had the same idea, I just put my own spin on it;

"I love the way she'll squeeze me
In her velvet wings
And when my sweet angle loves me
I think of her and not another thing"

I always liked that lyric from BB, and wanted to do my own thing with it, so I thought up my own version of "Sweet Little Angle" and called it "Angle Blues." Now, the rest of the lyric is totally, 100% mine. It has no resemblance, that I know of, to any other song. I just borrowed that particular idea from BB King.

Another more recent example, is our new tune, "She's So Fine." As I said before, this one wins the award for "Most Musical Accompaniments for One Lyric Idea" for Mojo. The arrangement we've settled on is borrowed from a song we heard by Ronnie Earl, called "My Buddy, Buddy Friends." It was very similar to an earlier version of the song we had done many years ago, but had something our version lacked, so we took that idea and made our own. There's a few stops in ours that the other doesn't have, and of course, the lyrics are totally different.

So, before you go saying, "Well, this song is just a rip-off such n such," remember this; Take a listen to Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love." Then listen to Muddy Waters' "You Need Love." The lyrics are almost word-for-word identical, just Zeppelin put a different music arrangement to it. Stealing? You be the judge.

this just added (2/15/05); Jon informed me that a judge decided what Led Zeppelin did was stealing, and awarded Muddy a fairly big settlement for it. Because the lyrics are nearly identicle in the two songs, it is legally copyright theft. So, maybe that wasn't the best example, but I hope you get the point!

-B

January 18; Lyric Idea: "She Calls Me Daddy"

Let's talk about the lyric for one of the newest additions to the MATB play list, "She Calls Me Daddy." Here's the words:

Well, I got a little girl

She’s the light of my life

A bright ray of sunshine

When things ain’t goin right

She calls me Daddy

Daddy all day long

She’s my little girl

The reason I sing this song

Now when she does wrong

I have to take her to task

And I have to come up with answers

To all the questions she asks

But she calls me Daddy

Daddy all day long

She’s my little girl

The reason I sing this song

(Solos)

Sometimes we argue

But most times we get along

And I feel so sad

When my little girl is gone

She calls me Daddy

Daddy all day long

She’s my little girl

The reason I sing this song

Ya know I got a little girl

She’s the light of my life

I know one day she’ll grow up

And be some lucky man’s wife

But she’ll still call me Daddy

Daddy her whole life long

She’s my little girl

The reason I sing this song

The subject of this song is my daughter, Meghan. She is 12-going-on-35, and every bit the moody handful a pre-teen should be. Don't get me wrong, I love her to death, and I know that someday we'll be past all the emotional ups and downs that go with this age.

Anyway, Jon brought in a musical idea that was to be an instrumental at first; kind of a lazy feel to Freddie King's "Hideaway." (we talked about Freddie King in the last post, and there's alink if you'd like to know a bit about him) As we worked a bit on this idea, he suggested using a bass line and rhythm pattern from a Roomful of Blues tune we were thinking of doing, but never got around to, and adding some lyrics.

Now, sometimes I will use lyrics I have already written with a musical idea that Jon has. Other times, I need to think about what he's laying down, and then put a lyric to it that I feel fits the mood of the tune. This time around, it was the latter of the two instances. I thought of the lyric pretty much as it appears here. The verses came together in the order they appear and everything. Sometimes, this is just how it works for me; a song will come to me in finished form, no need to arrange it or modify it in any way.

Let me tell you about how I work out a lot of my lyric ideas. I drive a delivery van for an electrical wholesaler, and during my delivery route, I have a lot of time to think of song ideas, lyrics, the eventual conquering of the world by Mojo & the Boogieman, my Grammy acceptance speeches, etc. When you have a lot of "windshield time," it's nice to have something to occupy your mind besides all those road-related things. As I drive, I can sing the melody, sing the kind of musical accompaniment I'd like, and work out arrangements as well. The best part is no one can hear me do it! Some folks sing to the radio while they drive, I sing to the songs in my head. I guess it beats talking to the voices in there! I'll get inspired by a song on the radio or a CD, and try my own lyric to a similar rhythm pattern or progression.

Jon and I talked about this particular song idea one day this past fall as I was on my delivery route. As I continued driving, I worked out the idea for the song. The original idea started out as another "love song" but as it went along, I thought it would be cool to disguise the real meaning until the last verse, and have it be a father talking about his daughter. Meghan and I had been having some "rough" days at the time, those father-pre-teen kind of days, and I kind of had her on my mind.

The original vocal melody was loosely based on the Roomful of Blues song I mentioned earlier. As we started to put the song together, however, the melody more closely resembled Eric Clapton's version of "Got You on My Mind." (In an upcoming post, I'll talk about "borrowing" musical ideas.) I'm really happy with the vocal melody now, because it has elements of both the songs I mentioned, and something completely of its own. The Clapton influence can plainly be heard in the "chorus" part of the verses:

"... Daddy all day long
She's my little girl
The reason that I sing this song..."

and I try to sing the song with the clean tones of Sugar Ray Norcia former lead singer/harmonica player for Roomful of Blues (now a solo artist). I've always loved Sugar Ray's voice. It's so clean and mellow, and my voice is usually so gruff, that naturally I wanted to sing like that someday.

One of my favorite things about this particular song, is that it is totally unique. It's a little blues, a little country, a little soul ballad, and all Mojo & the Boogieman! I also like that I can now say, "Here's one for my little girl, Megahn." Of course, now I have to write one for my son!

January 12, 2005; progress Report

Tonight, we worked out the arrangements on two songs, "The End of the Night," and "Texas Cannon Ball."

We'll start with "End of the Night." Here's the lyrics:

Well, it’s early in the mornin

And I come draggin my tired self home

Yes, it’s early in the mornin

And I come draggin my tired self home

Can I come over, baby

Cause I just don’t want to be alone

Hey baby,

Can I spend the night with you

Hey baby,

Can I spend the night with you

You know I get these warm ole feelins

When the night is through

We had a good time tonight

Everyone had some fun

But I just want to be with you baby

When that long day is done

Hey baby,

Can I spend the night with you

You know I get these warm ole feelins

When the night is through

(guitar solo)

(harp solo = ¾ time)

I don’t want no last-call angel

I don’t want to party with boys

I just want to be with you baby

And get away from all that noise

Hey baby,

Can I spend the night with you

You know I get these warm ole feelins

When the night is through

I gave all my love to the people

Now feel so empty inside

I just need some place

Where I can recharge and unwind

Hey baby,

Can I spend the night with you

You know I don’t feel like sleepin

But I just want to lay down with you

This is a mid-tempo 12-bar blues in the T-Bone Walker style. For a nice over-view on T-Bone, click here. We had this one pretty well finished, just some loose ends to tighten before playing it out.

As this song has progressed, we've added a harmonica solo section that is in 3/4 time and then continues in 3/4 through the next verse, stopping on the word "noise" in the 4th line, and coming back to the 4/4 feel and continuing as usual. For an example of this 4/4-to-3/4-and-back feel, check out The Allman Brothers' version of T-Bone's "Stormy Monday" on their album, Live at the Fillmore. It really adds a cool mood change to the song, and emphasizes the feeling of wanting to go someplace quiet where you can relax. We spent probably one hour on this section, getting the transition from the 4/4 to the 3/4 and back again, and getting everyone satisfied with what they were doing in the 3/4 section.

After tightening that up, Jon suggested a possible bridge idea to join the verses and the solo section using a lyric idea for a song we had worked on some years ago, but never finished and played out, called "I Need a Friend." Although the lyric didn't work with this song, the idea does, and I'll be working on that in the up-coming weeks. This bridge doesn't follow the usual 12-bar pattern of I-IV-V, in that it doesn't stay on each chord for the usual 3 bars and then change. It has more of an "8-bar" feel, like Robert Johnson's "Come On in My Kitchen." I think a bridge is just the ticket to solidify this song, and make it ready to present to our audiences. Now all I have to do is come up with lyrics to it!

As we got these modifications tightened, we committed the new version of the song to tape, via Jon's four-track recorder, and moved on to "Texas Cannon Ball."

"Texas Cannon Ball" is an instrumental that Jon wrote to celebrate two of his guitar idols; Freddie King (known as the Texas Cannon Ball) and Stevie Ray Vaughan (known as the Texas Hurricane). For a brief introduction of Freddie King, click here. This has a real powerful, up-tempo, driving feel to it, and is gonna be a great vehicle to showcase Jon's guitar work. I can't wait til folks get a chance to hear this! In a later post, I'll have Jon go through the inspiration for this tune, and also let him get all technical on you about how the song is structured and such. To me, it is reminiscent of Stevie's "Scuttle Buttin" as far as the main riff goes. Jon plans to have the first solo feature Freddie King-inspired licks, and then the second solo will feature SRV-like guitar work. In between these solos sections, we came up with a pretty cool bridge that brings the listener into that Stevie Ray frame of mind, and winds you up for the next solo section. After that, the end has some powerful punches to draw this powerhouse to a close.

This new arrangement of "Texas Cannon Ball" was also committed to tape, and then we headed for home. All-in-all, a very productive rehearsal/writing session.

She's So Fine; Lyric Idea

Okay, let's start with a little diddy called "She's So Fine." Here's the lyrics:

She’s So Fine

Talk about your baby,

I wanna tell ya ‘bout mine

Talk about your baby,

I’m gonna tell you all about mine

She’s got it goin on

Man, she’s so fine

She’s sweeter than honey from a honeybee

There ought to be a law the way she satisfies me

Talk about your baby,

I’m gonna tell you all about mine

She’s got it goin on

Man, she’s so fine

(guitar solo)

(bridge)

Well she ain’t too fancy

But boy is she sweet

My baby may be tied but she’ll never be beat

Let the fellas stare cause I don’t mind

I can’t blame them cause she’s so fine

She’s got dimples in her jaw, legs up to here

Gimme cold shivers when she whisper in my ear

Talk about your baby,

I’m gonna tell you all about mine

She’s got it goin on

Man, she’s so fine

(harp solo)

I’m her lover boy and she’s my only girl

Treat her like a queen, feel like the king of the world

Talk about your baby,

I’m gonna tell you all about mine

She’s got it goin on

Man, she’s so fine

This is probably the oldest of all the lyric ideas we're using on this album. At least that's the way I'm telling the story. "She's So Fine" has been put to more musical ideas than any other that I can recall as well. We have old rehearsal tapes of this lyric to around four different grooves! Anyway, here's the story on the idea for this lyric...

This song was written for my girlfriend, Paula. If memory serves, I came up with the lyric idea not long after we had started dating. As my band mates can tell you, I like to put lyrics from one song into another as we play them. Sometimes I'll come up with my own lyrics, sometimes I'll use someone else's. This is one of the latter cases. It came to me one night on-stage at a gig as we were playing another song. Sometimes I'll bring something to the gig in my head that I want to try out, and I'll just wait for the right song to try it in. Other times, well, it just happens on its own.

I think it's pretty straight forward what the lyric is talking about here. Guys will talk about the women in their lives. Some complain, some will brag how good they've got it. As far as I'm concerned, you can go on all day about how great your woman is, but I still think mine's the best.

Like I said earlier, this is an old lyric idea; maybe as old as 4 years. In that time, we've put it to a number of grooves, even played it out for a while back in like 2001 or so. The groove idea and arrangement are totally different now. There was another verse that has been dropped. It went something like

"Well I love my baby Better than I do myself You can have all the others, brother I don't want nobody else Talk about your baby..."

As we played with the new groove idea Jon brought in, the structure of the song didn't fit all the verse I had written , so we decided to drop one. Since all the verses were just a variation on the same theme, it was fairly simple to drop this verse. I didn't feel as good about this one for some reason as I did the others. I think the rhyme-scheme is cool; rhyming myself and else, but the verse as a whole didn't grab me as the others did, so bye-bye, verse and problem solved.

I like the idea of this song. It's not particularly unique concept in any way, but I feel that it's a unique way of saying what a lot of songs over the years have said. There's lots of "my baby's the best" songs out there, but this one is definitely a Mojo & the Boogieman "my baby's the best" song.