Half Past Midnight

It started out simply enough. There was no guitar album and none was planned. In between other projects, I stepped into the studio to document the Johnny Smith arrangement of Maid With the Flaxen Hair for the widow of my late friend and genius guitar builder Bill Hollenbeck. But as that recording found it's way to friends and mentors, it became clear that something else was going on. I first saw Chet Atkins perform at the annual Chet Atkins Appreciation Society when I was fourteen years old. Shortly thereafter I began to study a handful of his '50s RCA recordings along with more than a few late night guitar lessons from Jim Nichols and Richard Smith when I would return to the CAAS each July, which was fast becoming the highlight of my year. However, I'd resisted the idea of doing a solo guitar album almost since then. The world already had plenty of staggering ones, and my ever-changing musical path made it difficult to say commitment to any one definite concept. One moment it was Hi-Fi In Focus, the next it was Fresh Cream, and the next Born to Run (whoops, I meant to leave that one out). But solo guitar was always there. And in a melancholy 2012 - Johnny Smith on the turntable - I found myself reconnecting with it in a major way. If it's true that you make records because you love the subject and want to pass that feeling on, I suppose that I found myself hitting the record button almost by accident. As the material began to pile up, I got the idea to release an E.P. at most. Just to say thank you to Chet, to Johnny Smith, to Ted Greene (whose one solo guitar release got me through some hard nights), to Richard, and to Jim. Then I just kept going. Once I finally accepted that I was in fact making an album, one common thread emerged. All the records that ever moved me (especially the guitar ones) were founded upon proper songs. Even in the world of my formative blues-rock influences, the unleashed guitar solo was contained within the songs themselves. Clapton was writing songs; BB King was singing songs. So the first time I heard Chet, all I heard was music. Which is the thing I was drawn to most, I suppose. As impressive a technician as he could be, it was always melodic, forever lyrical. The guitar became his voice and took you to interesting places. So I knew that I wanted to record songs with melodies that deeply move me, feelings that deeply move me, and often times words that deeply move me (or as Lenny Breau once said, it's more of an instrumental, with lyrics.) These twelve selections are the sound of that. May they find a place in your life as they have in mine.