This album is something I've wanted to do for a long time. I've kept these songs, some of them for eight years, waiting for the chance to record them exactly as I heard them in my head. If I had known what a chore it would turn out to be, playing each part myself, this album might have come out a bit differently. But that's what I did. Everything you hear - the guitars, the steel, the bass, the piano, the snare drum - is me. This isn't so much an opportunity to show off what I can do as it is a chance to get to do more than just sing and play a guitar. Here's what you're hearing: Pedal Steel Guitar - my favorite instrument to play, probably because you can never learn it all. There's always something new to discover. I started out with a lap steel, and have been playing pedal steel for about four years now. I have my heroes like Don Helms, Jerry Byrd, Little Roy Wiggins, Lloyd Green, Jimmy Day, and Ralph Mooney. I've been stealing their licks, making up my own, and combining it all since I started playing. This album gave me a chance to play around with different ideas and finally hear back all I've been learning. Appearing on this album is my 1967 single-neck Sho-Bud Fingertip. Lead guitar - something I've always been a bit afraid of. That's why there's very little of it on this album; I only featured lead guitar on three songs here. I don't listen to a lot of guitar players, so most of what you'll hear on my leads comes from off the top of my head. While it's easy to guess who my steel influences are, my guitar heroes are limited to guys whose styles are too complex for me to try to emulate. Bass guitar - I've messed around with basses over the years but only bought one and really started concentrating on it about three months before this album was recorded. I have a new respect for the bass players out there. Bass is the foundation of any song, and not nearly as easy as I always thought. Percussion - My lack of rhythm is not the reason I only used a snare on this album. If you'll go back and listen to some old honky-tonk stuff, you'll hear something that sounds too percussive to be harsh strumming, but too soft to be drums. I had to have that sound on this record. That sound is actually a snare-like attachment on the body of an upright bass, played with a wire snare brush that's held between the fingers of the right hand. Sound difficult? It is. That's why I smacked a snare drum with a brush instead. The tic-tac guitar is the only other percussion instrument I used here. For anyone who isn't familiar with that, it's just an electric guitar, played with muted strings. In this case, it's a Fender Telecaster with a chunk of foam stuffed under the strings, near the bridge. Piano- I only used it on one song, but I definitely let it shine. Just A Kiss features one of my favorite sounds in honky-tonk music, and the shiny black grand piano in the studio was perfect for it. Acoustic guitar- Anna Marie is my Martin D-16RGT. It has a few dings here and there, but rings like a bell. Acoustic guitars often get buried in more heavily-produced mixes, but back in the old days, everything was out in the open. As you can probably tell, I recorded this album with the old school in mind. I hope this album is as enjoyable to listen to as it was to create. Thanks, Jake Penrod 1. THE GIRLS NEXT DOOR IN AUSTIN (2:59) For Molly, Jayne, and Melanie. This is a somewhat exaggerated account of an evening I spent in Austin, TX a couple of years ago. After writing it I thought it was too silly to record, and it was actually the last song I picked to go on this album. I made a demo, and decided it sounded better than I thought it would. So, here it is. I went for a sort-of 1960's-truck-driving-song feel on this song, heavy on the steel guitar, mixing my favorite Lloyd Green and Ralph Mooney licks into what sounds to me like a hybrid Warner Mack/Del Reeves record. This song is also for my best friend Marc, who was there that night,
