Midway Fair | 2 years ago

Brooks Long is a singer-songwriter, musicologist, and radio DJ from Baltimore. He has a knack for writing classic soul (and he knows more about classic soul than anyone else I've ever met, and hosts a weekly radio show about the history of soul on WTMD), but he also does everything from folk and blues to more modern R&B.

Brooks released this song on his ever-expanding Songster series, which is a collection of songs that aren't quite demos but aren't quite full recordings. Brooks is one of the best singers I know, so there was no way I was going to beat his vocal performance, but I did have an idea for a slightly different arrangement. His original recording sounds like a refugee from one of my favorite albums, Van Morrison's Astral Weeks (it borrows the chords and strumming pattern from Astral Weeks in fact), so I took it in a more Americana direction, and added the slide guitar to punch up some of the blues feeling in the melody.

You can get Brooks's original song here (which you should do):
https://brookslong.bandcamp.com/album/the-songster-part-2-1st-ed

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When your river can’t find the ocean
When you’re two times out of ten
When you’re very last dollar
Is your very last friend

Late in the midnight hour
After you finally reached the end
Then the pain you thought was sleeping
When it rises up again

Delivered

When the light at the end
Is the sunrise come again

When you’re peeling back the layers
Maybe you peeled them back too much
When it chews you up at breakfast
And spits you back out at lunch

When you thought that you could fly
Because you dreamed it up in bed
Then the blues in your sky
Starts to rain upon your head

Delivered

When you alight in the night
And you remember an ancient dance

Remember, remember, remember

When you’re running through the forest
Shackles on your feet
But your eyes are fixed on a star
and you won’t accept defeat

Maybe they think that you are sleeping
And you won’t wake up again
Then the magic in your soul
Starts to twitching up again

Delivered

When the light at the end
Is the sunrise come again

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Recording details:
Lead vocal: DIY 251 in Figure 8 (guitar in the null), ART Pro MPAII, Compressor Time (stereo 1176)
Acoustic guitar: DIY 47 (Heisserman capsule), vocal in the null
However, I'm far enough away from both these mics that neither the voice nor the guitar is really suppressed very much. This was partly an aesthetic choice for the video, but it also means I don't have to worry about phase issues on the guitar as much as if I got closer to the mics. If I had to sing quieter I might have been more worried.

Tenor harmony: DIY 47 (the other side of the figure 8, not that it matters much), ART Pro MPAII, Compressor Time (stereo 1176)
Electric guitar: Don Quixotecaster, Cardinal Harmonic Tremolo, El Capistan. I may have accidentally left the Bearhug off but I compressed it in post. I'm tuned down a whole step so I could play in open tuning in F.

Bass: Epiphone Viola Bass with John Benson pickups, direct to a Ge preamp and using the 60's Combo amp sim in Logic.
Baritone vocal: DIY FET (my design) 47, direct to Fireface

Drums: Sakae Trilogy, DIY 84 overheads, i5 & d2s, V-Kick, various Istanbul and Zildjian cymbals, various FET and germanium preamps for the close micing, direct to interface for the overheads.

Interface: Fireface UCX and 400 (daisy chained)
Recorded and Mixed in Logic
Shot on a Sony ZV-1 and edited in Final Cut