by ken brodeur
I heard it on the radio
it was a long time ago
Well it had been in a summer just like this
didn't buy the tune then but it didn't miss
Well I finally bought the record at the record store
played it until I wore a groove in the floor
I had fun back then and I knew and how
Russell Stone did it for me and said it aloud
Well Russell Stone came to town one day
heard him come along long time away
I thought I knew back then but I know it now
it's a long time to go before you can build a cloud?
Oh we got ready then to go to the show
packed all of Russell's songs for the sojourn you know
the van was rockin' down that ol rocky road
the shows excitment was taking a hold
Ah now the show is gone and I sit in my van
hearing the old stoner's tunes at hand
people stoppin' by my van to party a few
what a great time you and I passed thru
my El Segundo California location. Chuck Lanza, guitar player with the Last Tribe, came
up with this ditty playng rythym and we jammed on it for a while. It later was tossed to
the dust bin as the Last Tribe moved to other material because the singer we were
working with basically split. I picked it up from there. The song title was born out of a
working title used as a reference to remember the tune. It sounded like a cross
between Leon Russel and the Rolling Stones, hence Russel Stone. Then I turned it into
the story of the joy of music through a fictional musical icon.
Originally written in 1992 and played in dozens of variations from having a guest flutist to
numerous guitar players, and various other instruments it has finally come to fruition. I
played all the parts here being rythym guitar, piano, bass, harmonica, voice and drums
(drum machine from the Technics PR100 Digital Ensemble) and doing it with no
overdubs in one day. The mistakes are deliberately left in the final recording to give the
music a better feeling of being performed live.
Lots of compression and distortion also is used to create a feeling of a live perfromance
where amps may have been overdriven.
The leads were worked up minutes before recording as a general outline so the leads
on piano and harmonica were basically spontaneous and undefined, as on most of my
recordings.
Ultimately the goal is to create a song that captures the feeling of live shows and so
musicians can emulate it with ease or as easily as possible. The leads? Well that is
up to the discretion of the lead player they may emulate it or take it in thier own direction
and that just adds to the surprise and excitement of live entertainment!
