Each song started with me singing and playing guitar the whole way through. With that scratch track in my headphones, I re-recorded the guitar track a few times and Casey compiled a “best of” version of those takes. Then I’d sing the song through several times with the new guitar track in my headphones. Casey would add the “best of” those vocal takes to the guitar track, and that would be in the headphones while he recorded drums or high-strung guitar.
Then Casey brought in stellar session musicians Johnny Duke and Brian Allen. Johnny added acoustic guitar, electric guitar, lap steel, Dobro and mandolin to the vocal/guitar/drum tracks and then I added vocal harmonies to those tracks. Brian added acoustic upright bass, electric bass and fretless electric bass. Casey suggested we add strings to some of the tracks, so he sent them off to David Rodgers who wrote the parts and his wife Emily Nelson Rodgers who performed them on cello.
I was so impressed with the virtuosity of Casey, Johnny and Brian, and their ear for the songs — but more than anything they were just so kind and laid-back. Does it really matter if the producer and musicians are nice? Yes! You want to be able to relax your mind and body and nerves so that you can immerse yourself in the song and let it tell its story. It is my opinion that you can tell whether you’re listening to music made by people who enjoyed being in the room where it happened. I make music because I have always loved being in that room — from the hushed venue with a great sound system to the sanctuary singing hymns with a room full of sopranos, altos, tenors and basses to the back porch trading breaks with banjos, guitars, fiddles and mandolins to the songwriter circle where someone hesitantly shares a song for the first time to that one hour in the long roadtrip when everyone’s singing along to the playlist at the top of their lungs to the the solitary moment in the dining room when an idea coalesces into a lyric and melody and you record a voice memo to capture it. It’s always the greatest privilege to be in the room where music happens.
Whenever I listen to the songs on Inner Atlantis, I can feel again the rush I felt when I was in the room where it was happening. There was so much joy and kindness and beauty in that room. I hope you can hear it, too. I’m so grateful to Casey for his incredible skill and musicianship, but also for the space he creates and protects in his studio.
All photos taken by J. Gascho
