Evolution

On monday April 20th my friend Chip Larison came in to lay down a lead on "Beautiful." I grew up listening to Chip tear up the old music clubs in Nyack like The Office and Eastwicks. He was always a killer blues player and I thought he would be a good match for this tune, and I was right. We started out just laying down a fingered guitar solo but during a break he started playing around with a slide. From upstairs I was like, "I Like That!!!" So we scratched the other solos he had done and focused on the slide.After a while we had a killer solo which was unique and also fit the tune. Chip's slide playing is a cross between George Harrison's style and David Gilmore's style IMHO. Chip played his custom built strat through a Line 6 modeling amp. Great combination. I close miced him with a Beyer m160 and the Soundeluxe.



Here's a version of Beautiful with Chip's solo, Dave on drums and yours truly on bass.


I just contacted Carl Brooks and he will be coming in to lay down some gospel style background vox on this soon. The Brooks family was a well known singing group in Nyack for a long time. They used to sing at a lot of public functions and holiday galas but Mom Brooks passed away and some of the siblings moved away after that, putting a halt to their shows. Carl, Stacey and Vicky were all school friends of mine so I sent Carl a facebook message and we're gonna talk this week. I look forward to singing with him!!