Repetitive Strain Injury. I had a lot of titles in contention for this one. I decided on RSI to tie in with the nature of the lyrics but also the fact that as we all age, we pick up the inevitable aches and pains. My day job has resulted in many of the above which for the most part, I just get on with. Sadly however, over the last few months, I've been unable to play my guitar from damaged ligaments/muscles in my left arm and wrist. This has been very frustrating to say the least and I can only hope that things improve. This tune is some straight up Rock & Roll which is a style etched into my DNA. Recorded largely before my injury and recently embellished with some boogie woogie piano & lyrics.
Here's the latest one, another instrumental utilising the same open C chord structure. Actually largely finished before the last one but needed a little more in the mixing.
Oh my goodness, it's been a whole year since my last tune. Things do have a habit of getting in the way. Well this one is the result of fooling around with the Open C tuning made famous by Jimmy Page, most notably in 'The Rain Song' from 'Houses of the Holy'. I'd always loved this song right from when I first picked up a guitar aged about 14. Back then I thought I was pretty smart by working some of it out in the standard tuning, unaware of how wrong I was. Some years later, I got the hang of it in an Open G style which I'd been exploring- closer but still not quite right. About a year ago I stumbled across the right tuning and had to relearn it for the 3rd time. Finally it all made sense and I found another amazing sounding pallet. Open tunings are really great to play around in and they offer fantastic alternatives to the norm. Here's the result.......
This one is taken from the 1982 Soundtrack for the absolute classic Sci-Fi film Blade Runner. Always adored this film and I'd been listening to it while at work and thought that I could perhaps try and work something out. It also gave me the chance to record with my most recent acquisition: an Epiphone lap steel guitar which I've been fooling around with during the spring. Don't go expecting big electronica by the way, this one is a bit of an anomaly in amongst all the beautiful synthscapes.
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CITY OF NEW ORLEANS
So with no fresh ideas and a mojo gone into hiding, I asked my fam out of all the songs they'd listened to over the last 20+ years, which, if any, I should maybe have a go at committing to 'tape'. They pretty much straight away responded with 'City of New Orleans' and this is the result.
Quite a special song for me in it's way; it's certainly been part of my consciousness for 40 years or more. It has so many links for me to people who've come and gone over that time. When we first got The Bourne Valley Boys together back in 2002, I went through my entire vinyl collection looking for inspiration for material that would fit the new band. The only song that jumped out at me was 'City', and we worked it up and played it at every gig since that time. We never tired of it and, crucially, the audience loved it, helped in no small part by Chris's locomotive blues-harp and Simon's vocal harmonies.
I'd like to dedicate this to all the people who come to mind whenever I hear or play it- they are many but in particular, Simon Squire (who will never see this but first played me the Arlo Guthrie version back in school), Sophie, Lily and Ruby, Big Keith (who really loved this and regularly fixed us up with gigs), Caroline & Yash and in particular their son Luca, who as a toddler was just absolutely mesmerised by a certain Johnny Cash train video. x