32¢ Postage Due

About 10 years ago I sat down with my old friends, The Dillards in Branson, MO and spent a few days recording some of my father's songs together. We tried to do too much in too short a time and my voice turned to gravel after the 3rd day. But we were having so much fun we just kept playing. Eventually we took the tapes home and tried to mix it all into a recording. In those days we were recording on A-Dat format and had a number of A-Dat machines running in sync to record everything. When we got home we discovered that the machines were not quite as in sync as we'd thought, and my son Abe (our engineer) spent the better part of a year trying to remove the cracks and pops (digital artifacts) that were everywhere throughout the songs. By the time we got done the songs had lost much of their original feeling. There didn't seem to be any way of fixing the problems so we put it in the 'we'll get to it' list of things to do. As newer technology developed during the following years we thought we'd give it another shot. We were able to clean it up considerably but then we started listening and there were more problems. So we shelved it again and a few more years went by. Then one day I was walking around the house and my wife, Jackie was playing the songs from the project. I hadn't heard it for years and I thought it sounded better than I had remembered. So I called Abe and asked him to start working on it again. I had plans to do a year-long solo tour and figured he could work on it while he was home and I was out on the road. By this time everyone who knew of the project had given up hope of ever hearing it. But, Abe kept at it, cleaning the tracks, separating the songs, all the stuff you do in the studio. Eventually my daughter Sarah Lee got involved and started working with Abe. She liked hearing all the talk and goofing off we were doing in the studio when we recorded it. And she began picking the songs that worked together best - creating a less formal recording then I'd originally planned. When I got back from the Solo Reunion Tour, they presented me with the recording and I told them to 'put it out.' The resulting CD is not like the usual stuff we do. There are inherent problems with the sonic clarity, voices fading in and out, instrumentals where nobody is playing anything special, but it's all real. It's just The Dillards and me goofing off a decade ago singing and picking some of my father's most loved songs. Maybe there's a place for this somewhere. We decided not to try to 'fix' it but rather to let it ride. This isn't The Dillards at their best. Not me at my best either. It's just what it was for a few days a long time ago. If you ever wondered what it's like to just sit around a few microphones with some good friends singing and picking for the hell of it, this is for you. Thanks to Rodney, Doug, Dean and Mitch - THE DILLARDS and thanks to Abe and Sarah Lee for getting this out there. This record was originally planned for when the US Post Office released a Woody Guthrie stamp worth 32¢. It's long over due. If you want it go to the RSR website store - http://www.risingsonrecords.com/ [thumb:28p9pyiz]http://lh6.ggpht.com/folkslinger/SMj4gYuUSiI/AAAAAAAAAYo/Fkm16P8G0xc/s400/32-cover-take-3.jpg[/thumb:28p9pyiz] By the way, RSR is also having a poster sale that's fairly amazing. Really. When they say 'sale' they mean it. I don't know when the sale is over... but it won't last long. [thumb:28p9pyiz]http://lh4.ggpht.com/folkslinger/SMj4lkLV0mI/AAAAAAAAAYs/VjHfPLt6tMI/s400/Postersale.jpg[/thumb:28p9pyiz]