Footnotes

Welcome to this collection of songs, Written in part to reflect the area in which I was born, grew up in, live and work in. The album is the first collection of my songs and is the heaviest of four albums I have written. The tracks have been written and recorded between 2005 - 2008, with a few riffs older than that. The album has grown over the years as I originally had 10 tracks on this album - many of them instrumentals. The days when an album was made, then another and so on, often to meet record labels agreements are arguably over - so this album is you could say organic, in that it has grown and been refined.  With no need to meet a deadline or publishing time-line I have been happy to add, refine, or take out tracks to this album, and other tracks that I dont think fit in have been set aside for other collections. With enough tracks recorded I felt that was a suitable time to release the album.
Blues In The Black Country draws much on this area in which I live. I have added the following footnotes for a bit of added detail, which hopefully you will find interesting.

A Cry from The Castle Keep
Originally I wanted to start this album off with a track called Fanfare. A track I had recorded and was inspired by the first track off the Sensational Alex Harvey Band Live’ album.  However, I decided that the instrumental was too long and not heavy enough for this album, so set it aside for my album of ‘classical’ tracks. I did like the concept though of a powerful guitar riff heralding in the rest of the music. I started to write this track as a lead riff that I am always playing in various incarnations, and decided to make it into a song. Overlaying the same guitar riff at slightly higher pitches developed into the final track. The start is very much written as an introduction to a live set, an then with the bass coming in the main pattern is laid out. I then drew on the original fanfare idea as the title, as I wanted to reflect the pageantry of Dudley Castle. The lyrics reflect some of the history that the Castle has ‘seen’. I particularly like the fact that there are no chords, nor a chorus in this song, and it is particularly hard to play - moving extremely quickly from A on the 5th fret of top E to G on the 15th after playing 4 stunned notes on the 5th fret of the A G D and E strings.

Blues In The Black Country
This was always going to be the title of the album as soon as I came up with it as a title for this song. Originally an instrumental influenced by the folk-rock side of Led Zeppelin I decided to write the lyrics very much to reflect the area of the Black Country. I decided to keep many of the original guitar riffs in as a backdrop, and on occassion, as the main melody to the song. In this song I have again not incorporated a chorus and although there are chords, they tend to blend into a riff. This again lends itself to an unconventional song pattern.

Sense Insomnia
This song started life as the original blues guitar riff you hear at the start of the track. In fact that is the original recording of the idea. (I tend to record my ideas in Garageband as and when I have them). The song originally was a low key blues number with just a guitar, bass and drums - a million miles from what it now sounds like. Over two years later I was looking over some old ideas to update and use to complete this album and thought there might be some mileage in taking the riff and trying to do something with it.  I had no idea what - though I soon felt a Led-Zeppelin inspired heavy, slow, laid back drum pattern would beef it up. Then I thought, no - speed it up and so I did - the rest fell into place very quickly. I kept the original simple guitar riff at the start, even though the timing doesn't quite fit into the new drum pattern.  The lyrics reflect the number of lost nights sleep due to stress or other concerns, or even when my mind has refused to defragment and kept me awake.

The Girl From Blackheath
Blackheath is - or was until very recently  - everything I like about the towns in the Black Country. Distinctive from each other with a mix of old and new, which draws up childhood memories yet says that it’s not standing still.  Most  importantly though are the friendly people here. Complete strangers come up to you and talk to you as if they've known you all your life.  My girlfriend - later to be my wife came originally from Blackheath. 

Song And Dance Part 2
Song and Dance Part 1 is a track that follows a typical chord pattern and I always wanted to overlay the riff you hear in Song And Dance Part 2 on top of part 1 but just couldn't get it to work - so I decided to make it into a separate song. Part 2 became a distinctive song but essentially follows the same chord sequence.  I shelved Part 2 for many months as the first recordings sounded very 60's pop influenced. However I re-recorded it with the lyrics at an early stage and decided to then shelve Part 1 as both tracks were sounding similar!  The track(s) were always meant to reflect the fun of playing guitar late at night on a warm Summers evening - and Part 2 reflected this with a good feel to it.

Seasonal Affected Disorder
The working title for this was '6 guitars' and as an instrumental that remained so for many months. One day I decided to add the heavy chords to the instrumental and the lyrics started to flow almost immediately. I never planned to write a song about Seasonal Affected Disorder - which I think we probably all suffer from to a greater or lesser degree from time to time - but it was during a lengthy spell of cold, dark wet weather one winter that I added the lyrics. This song remains one of my favourites - there is so much going on with the guitars, and the lyrics mean a lot to me.

Black Country Blues
This was originally only the acoustic start that opens up the song and with tongue in cheek I added the heavier verses later. However I really liked the lead guitar breaks and occasional guitars interposing so thought I'll add some lyrics and see what it sounds like.  The lyrics took an age to write but I really think they make the song as they draw very heavily on my personal experiences from growing up in the Black Country. If this were a vinyl album, this would be the last track on side A.

Soft As Steel
Again, this started life as an acoustic instrumental.  I wrote it as a fast guitar riff and when I played it on the electric guitar with the 'phased' sound I thought that it worked better. I added the Countryman just to see if it became more bluesy later on and decided it added a bit of clarity. The lead break was particularly fun to play and isn't as difficult as it sounds! Lyrics reflect the environment of the industrial sprawl of the area. I thought that this would be  a good opener for side B!

Sunrise
This song was envisaged as a bit of fun. I wanted a sunny song - something to reflect the Summer, and wouldn't be out of place being played live at a summer festival.  Again this was originally an instrumental, but it sounded a bit repetitive and I felt that it really needed some lyrics.  Sunrise seemed to encapsulate the idea of a new dawn for the area as years of heavy manufacturing industry gave way to new commerce and industry - something that is often viewed with a negative light - however I wanted it to be more positive, a sort of re-birth if you like, so sunrise seemed to sum that up in a few simple lyrics and the feel of the song.

Stealth
This was originally a classical guitar piece called Everyman and was written several years ago.  After hearing some Nightwish I thought, why don't I see if some of my classical pieces can be re-worked into heavy rock with classical overtones, and this is the result. I think it works well - much better than the original piece. Lyrics were added later and reflect the way that the cultures of the Black Country are slowly being eradicated by generation.

Marta Hari
Sometimes it just feels good to play traditional blues and this is me giving it a blast.  There's a lot of crazy people around and anyone claiming to be Marta Hari is one of them.

Mayday
As anyone who has ever done any studio recording will know, a track at the end of production can sound very different to the way it was originally envisaged - Mayday is an example of this.  Originally I wanted an instrumental that drew on some of the influences of the last track off the the first Big Country album - Porrohman. I already had the ‘echoey - riff’ at the start and had it waiting to do something with it - so with the aid of the Applemac was able to add the additional tracks and start to build up the song.  The first version on the album is almost exactly as it was first recorded with practically no cleaning up or editting (which is why there are some interesting timing issues and you can even hear me searching for some lead riffs towards the latter end of the song!)  Nothing was scripted -  it just happened pretty much as you hear it. I liked the result but felt originally that it was over long and slow to include on an album. I really liked the main guitar refrain, the chords and the echoey riff though so decided to speed it up and develop something a but faster and less intense ...
Hence Mayday was written.  The final version of the song keeps much of the original melody, and with some of the original guitar leads interposing between verses in the absence of a chorus adds to an interesting structure. Just for the record I decided to include the original also.

Lookin' At You (Extended Mix)
There are two versions of this song knocking about so I decided to add one of them as a sort of 'bonus ' track.  The short single version grabs your attention quickly but loses the ending which I really like.  The start of this album version has gone through several re-writes and I'm still not sure about it.  I do like the riff used throughout the song which I've used on a number of occasions as part of lead breaks (you can hear a part of this in Song And Dance Part 2).  I do like the fact it draws upon the New Wave / Punk rock influences of my teens. Lyrically it is a bit of boy meets girl standard fare - or boy would like to meet girl in fact.

As you will now have concluded, a good number of the tracks on this album started life as instrumentals. These were:
Blues In The Black Country, The Girl From Blackheath, Seasonal Affected Disorder, Soft As Steel, Sunrise, Stealth, This Week’s Number One and Mayday. Having added lyrics to most of them I have in many cases left much of the original lead guitar melodies to add flavour to the overall melodies and harmonies.