so...

now that the jazz cd is almost finished, i'm already hard at work on the next album in my head. i honestly can't help myself. maybe that's why i'm usually steady at it, making lists and drawing things and jotting down ideas. there are about three different projects popping off in me all the time, at least. there's music, always music - and all the stuff that goes with it, like guitar/piano/theory/voice lessons. there's a really good book in me, somewhere.   i think i  started looking for it sometime last year.  and yep, i'm still working on the book and lyrics to the jazz burlesque musical that i mentioned awhile back. the treatment/synopsis is done and i'm just about finished with the polishing and the spit shining of the first act. yikes.  if i ever get any real money to produce the things i'm dreaming of, i'm going to be in big trouble.

for awhile, i thought about not doing a country record, and then one day i thought why not? and i seriously couldn't think of a good reason.  and then ideas came at me like schrapnel and everything started happening. and then i ran out of money.

maybe the black country record is a love letter to the south. i do so miss austin, texas. or at least the austin i knew when i was an undergrad there.  i miss breakfast tacos! and i miss charleston, sc too. but that's going to be a different country album. that one is brighter, it's country gospel, that one happens later.

i can hear the songs in their fullness - what they sound like all finished, who's playing on them, what i want my voice to do.  it's like my head is a radio and the sounds are happening all the time.  it's really fresh and uncomplicated. and thankfully, it's halfway there - the black country sessions. i suppose it's the kind of stuff you're most likely to hear on boot liquor radio. i'm still trying to find the right way to phrase the title but thankfully, the songs are wandering towards me slowly, slowly - belligerent, unrepentant, melancholic.  it hasn't been a struggle to remember how miserable i was when i was living through these lyrics - though now that i'm this happy and there's this much joy in my life, it honestly feels like it happened to someone else.

i"ve recorded half of it already. whenever the spirit moves me, i'm sifting through lyrics and melodies with my bare hands. every so often, i wallow in it, but since that's the kind of thing that's apt to make me weepy in all the wrong ways, i tend to avoid long jagged songwriting sessions with this stuff, especially when the place is quiet and i'm alone in bed.

mostly it's songs about me getting my heart ripped to shreds by what was ostensibly the very epitome of what could only be described as a really nice guy.  it's really super catchy happy sounding sing along stuff. i can't wait for you to hear it.