I love the hard rock and blues of the late 60's and 70's.
I have always loved the hard rockin\\\\\\\' blues of the late 60\\\\\\\' early 70\\\\\\\'s. Zepplin, Hendrix, Deep Purple, Gary Moore and so many others. We try to offer this old blues feel in this and the CD\\\\\\\'s to follow. We had so much fun with our friends creating this CD.
This CD became an experiment in Creative Behavior. We started by learning a song and recording it that night. One thing led to another and we had some finished songs. I made a few demos for folks and they like them, so we continued. The more we did the more some of our friends wanted to come out and do some solos. These solos and other added parts were generally the first or second impressions of the songs. Much like a rehearsed jam. It was fantastic what they had come to create.
I built a recording room in my back garage and wanted to get together with some friends to record a few original songs. We never really meant to release this as a CD but it was hard not to do as the recordings were sparking some interest with the local musicians. Truly garage band style.
We started on a new CD, many of the artists are returning. We have added several others including some vocalists and horns. This new CD will be a variety of blues, funk (sort of) and rock.
Always helping the local Cancer Walks and events for the American Cancer Society, I had donated a song called ‘Walk Together’ to their cause. All money collected from the purchase of this song will be donated to the local Cancer Society folks here in Oregon. I hope I can raise some money to help their cause.
The musicians who participated were great. It started with Les who put an additional solo on ‘Oh Cancun’. I have worked with Les in other bands and asked to come by. He put the second lead on and nailed it in just a couple of tries. I wanted to have him on a few other recordings but our timing was off.
After that I ran across Luke, a college student, who placed the first lead on ‘Oh Cancun’. His style was so much different than anyone else on the CD, it added so much. I hope we can get him for the new project.
Things started to fall into place. I had a few more songs to record, Frank and Marc had both moved out of state. I asked Jim, a guy I work with, to add some drum parts. He had retired from drumming many years ago and really did not want to record. After I had played a few of the songs we had already done and I bugged him for weeks he reluctantly came in. After a few warm ups he was ready and put down several parts. He enjoyed it enough to want to add the drums to the next CD.
Alex came in and laid down the bass parts. Alex is one of the best bass players I had ever worked with. He just has a natural feel for the instrument and in no time had the parts down.
Dennis is an old friend who was wondering around a Farmers Market when I asked him to put in some guitar leads. He was there the next evening and got things going right away. He has a nice smooth feel to the guitar and a laid back style. Perfect for those songs.
At last I thought I had finished the CD. But there was something missing. I wanted a harp. I found a few guys who were harp players. After working with them I was not certain I enjoyed their parts on the songs. During a Jam at a local pub I saw Carl, he was always around for a Jam. He had jammed with other bands I had worked with and was very good. I asked him to come in and see what he could do. He was ready that night. But we waited until the next evening. Carl came in and placed a few parts down but really was not very satisfied. He returned the next evening and put down the parts you hear on the CD. It was the final touches and I felt there was a good blend of music and musicians. There we have 42nd Street the CD.
This being our first released CD we hope you will enjoy it as much as we enjoyed creating it. We learned quite a lot about mastering and recording to master. Although we left the mistakes in this CD, we learned so much about the processes. We welcome any corrective criticisms, any lyric ideas or any musicians who want to come by and put in their chops for the cause. We love to have people over to offer their creative personalities.
Dan Mitzimberg / 42nd Street