naked

Naked

Thrirteen Song CD

View The Lyrics Here

Special - Just $10.95

NAKED, the title of the brand new thirteen song CD for 2004 is just that, divested of the multi-instrumented production of my last two projects it stands unadorned, in stark contrast with only acoustic guitar and vocal giving voice to all never before recorded tracks with the exception of "Stardust Cowboy" the epic poem from 2002's THE ASCENDING MASQUERADE, and the standard Gospel song "Amazing Grace" the arrangement being what I call my bluesy barroom version, and the lyrics altered slightly to accommodate my rather augmented theology. Sharing production credit along with me is Jay Hirshberg the dynamo guitarist, bass player, backing vocalist and singer/songwriter in his own right who co-produced my 2003 project, PRELUDE TO APOCALYPSE. In fact it was Mr. Hirshberg who suggested I do a completely acoustic record and call it NAKED. Since the Borders Bookstore Café and other coffee house venues have been the places I've played the most in recent years, many fans of the acoustic-singer/songwriter genre have requested that I do an all acoustic album. Along with his idea of the acoustic CD venture Jay also proposed that I quickly pen the title cut and of course call it NAKED. As I drove home that Saturday afternoon following our conversation, I began to think about writing a song called Naked. The line that kept coming to mind was from the first chapter of the Old Testament book of Job at verse twenty-one after he had, in one felled swoop, lost all of his children and all of his possessions, Job then tore his robe, shaved his head, fell to the ground and worshiped saying; (in the King James Version) "Naked came I out of my Mother's womb, and naked I shall return thither." Well, I figured that's about as naked as one can get so I decided to see what I could make of it. Working the rest of the afternoon and on into the evening the lyrics and musical arrangement finally fell into place. After finishing I decided that I had, in the most sparse and candid manner, successfully condensed and summarized the message of the entire book of Job into three five line verses;

Naked came I,
Out of my
Mother's womb,
And naked I
Shall return,

Everything lonesome,
And everything blue,
Can happen to you
In a moment of time,
In a heartbeat or two,

You can hide all your deficiency,
Behind a cloak of respectability,
And pious religiosity,
But in the end,
You're as naked as me. . . .

So I had the title cut, now to flesh out the rest of the record. In trying to avoid using songs for next years projected recording venture, STRAYDOGS, STEEL GUITARS, & RECKLESS LOVE I had to draw on tunes I've been writing in conjunction with a novel (ON SOME PASSIONATE NIGHT) that lies half finished; "Vagabond", "Prince Charming", "Fragile" and "If I Saw You (In The Moonlight)" are those songs. The opening cut "Condition Of The Highway" and "The Ballad Of Billy Edwards" were written in the spring of this year (2004). I had to dust off a couple of songs, in fact "Sweet Rosa Lee" is so dusty I can't remember now if she was an actual person that I knew or simply a figment of an overly romantic imagination. "Six Strong Men" was written a whopping twenty five years ago with regards to the death of band mate and guitarist Richard Fiffe. Although this collection of songs are deprived of instrumentation (drums, bass guitar, keyboard, ect.), thus naked, I did utilize the talents of B.D. Bennett a long time collaborator who wrote the music for "Stardust Cowboy" and contributed art work for my 1999 book of song lyrics and poetry THE ART OF LIVING AND DYING. Mr. Bennett plays acoustic rhythm, lead and slide guitars on six of the tracks and sings backup on one. Essential to the overall message of the project of course is the creativity which goes into the production of the packaging, photographs, layout and design. For this I called upon the skills of two lovely young ladies; Karise Stefanatos doing layout design, front cover and inside photography, and artist and photographer Kelli Winter whose intriguing photograph "The Doll And The Box" which I purchased at a recent show, adorns the back cover. There it is, as best as I can describe it, unadorned, stripped, plain, laid bare, austere, exposed, unclothed, in a word, NAKED. Without the use of endless overdubs this CD was recorded mostly live with guitar and vocal done together in two or three takes. The tracks with B.D. Bennett were laid down much the same way it would sound if you were seated in a coffee house somewhere listening to us play. All the nuances of a live performance come across, sometimes the thump of the hand against the body of the guitar, the slap of the strings as the song begs for that percussive element needed at the moment when the lyric and the rhythm collide. All the raw characteristics of one or two acoustic guitars pushing the limits of intensity, simple unembellished emotion.