The Year of Twelve Songs, Pt 6

Red Dirt and Black Shoes

This Month’s Song

I wrote this song about my sister’s funeral. She died in 1991 of a rare lung disease at the age of 35. I was 33 at the time and had been living with her for a few years during her long and brutal sickness. I’ve written about it before, but in prose, not in song. Her death was a huge transitional moment for me, and during the few years right after that, I tidied up my lifestyle, got serious about making a living, and finally got married at the age of 36. 

The song is transitional, too. After Debi died, in the midst of its after-effects, I put music aside for a while. Oh, I got my harmonica into a jam session once in a while, but that was about it. I put my guitar in a case under the bed and didn’t even touch it for a couple years. And, when I did start playing again, I didn’t write any new songs for years. This song was the first one.

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You could also say it’s my humble nod to the great tradition of blues songs about death and dying and people getting buried. Classics like: Death Blues by Lightnin’ Hopkins; Death Letter Blues by Son House; and Dark Was the Night, Cold was the Ground by Blind Willie Johnson. 

As always, thanks for listening, and let me know what you think.

Debi's Senior Pic; The ever handy Taylor T5z; The mastered track; the x/y mic'ing technique with the Taylor American Dream ready to go; Debi a few years before the end; At the cemetery.

Performance & Production

It’s a straight 12-bar blues in G, one voice, two guitars, one harmonica, and a little digital percussion groove. Not too much to say about that. Just trying to keep it simple and on the raw side.

I guess the most interesting thing about the arrangement is that I played the basic guitar on the Taylor T5z, recorded straight to the computer like an electric. Then I layered another slightly different pattern on the Taylor American Dream acoustic guitar but I used a capo on the third fret and played with E chord shapes to add a higher frequency to the sound. I used two small condenser AKGs to x/y mic the guitar, then panned the two signals all the way right and left to widen the mix. That’s a fairly common guitar trick, but also fairly new to me.

See, I am learning something!

Gear & Software

(Tech shit)

Guitars: Taylor T5z, Taylor American Dream AD11e Grand Theater

Harmonica: Seydel Session Steel in key of C

Plug-ins: Waves CLA Vocals; Waves Abbey Road Studio 3

Educational Resources: Colin Cross, TheBandGuide.com; Joe Gilder, HomeStudioCorner.com

Hardware: MacBook Air 2020, with AOC 27-inch auxiliary monitor.

Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 Audio Interface

Sennheiser HD 280 Pro Headphones

Beyerdynamic DT900 ProX Open-back Headphones

PreSonus E5 Studio Monitors

PreSonus M7 Cardioid Condenser Microphone

AKG P170 Small Condenser Microphones (2)

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