Heading in for the last weekend of recording. Here are a handful of candids from the last few sessions. Fingers crossed. See you on the other side…
Photoset: Should have a release date for the new album announced in the next few weeks. Sending warm holiday… http://t.co/jAhNZFN1
Should have a release date for the new album announced in the next few weeks. Sending warm holiday wishes to you from Los Angeles.
Love,
CR
More views of the recording of the new album, Downtown Los Angeles, December 5, 2012. Just passed the halfway mark.
Photoset: Deep into the new album, somewhere in downtown Los Angeles, 11.19.11. http://t.co/Syjnj2r2
Deep into the new album, somewhere in downtown Los Angeles, 11.19.11.
Recording of my new album is underway here in Los Angeles. I’ll be posting all the bits and pieces I’m able to as we go…
Scenes From The New Record: 7.28.11
Big Thank You to @PetePetoniak for hosting me on Fox 11 to talk about http://t.co/7HObOkK . How’s it I’m in GB and @RachelManek is in CA?
Watch the new video for LANDLOCKED! on YouTube!
Today, my new single, LANDLOCKED!, arrives in digital music stores. It seems fitting that overnight the temperatures in parts of the Midwest dipped down near the freezing mark. On May 16th.
This song’s a little different from the type you normally get from me. It’s a collaboration between myself and three good friends of mine who are members of a fantastic Los Angeles rock band called Rooney.
I wrote LANDLOCKED! several years ago in Nashville, when I was fishing for an idea for a song that my publisher could pitch for a new album of a major Country artist. At the time, there was a slew of songs running up the Country charts that were about some Country Boy or Country Girl cavorting on a beach in Mexico. You might remember the ones — there was a lot of rhyming “señoritas” with “margaritas” going on that particular year.
Well, I started off down that well-worn writing road towards those white-sand beaches, but before I knew it, I found myself somewhere I hadn’t expected: The Midwest.
My hometown of Sheboygan, Wisconsin, to be specific.
Those are the people I know best. And the more I got to thinking about those people, the more I found myself taken with their ability to take what most people would consider to be less-than-idyllic conditions, and spin them into something unique and beautiful. I mean, have you ever seen the parking lot of Lambeau Field on a Packers Sunday in December? THAT is creativity and grit. And I really admire that.
So LANDLOCKED! is a tribute to my friends and family, who year after year continue to rock the middle of the county — come rain, snow, floods or tornadoes. But the song is also my tribute to people everywhere whose minds keep drifting to places that seem more ideal, but who eventually find a way to — to paraphrase the song — truly make the best of what they’ve got.
As I type this, it’s nearly June, and there are high winds and frost warnings all over the Midwest. Landlocked people are restlessly filing into their local watering holes, bowling alleys, VFW halls, Elks lodges, basements and back decks.
This one’s for you.
Sending love from California,
CR
Get the ”LANDLOCKED!” single at iTunes Music Store
Get the “LANDLOCKED!” single at Amazon Music Store
And please don’t forget to take a look at the new CR MERCHANDISE STORE, where you can customize all the items to your specific (terrific) taste.
Engineer David Bianco either piloting the Starship Enterprise, or mixing my new single, “Landlocked!”. You decide.
Last night, I wrapped up recording my new summer single, “Landlocked!” with my pals Ned Brower, Taylor Locke and Louis Stephens (with a little assistance from Sarah Jane Morris). We knocked the song out at the neighborhood TAN Studio in two evening mini-sessions between spring Rooney runs — and I have to say that it was the most fun I’ve had recording in ages. BIG thanks to everyone involved.
I’m writing from the mix studio, where David Bianco and I are putting the final touches on “Landlocked!” before I send it across the wires to iTunes and all your other favorite digital music stores in time for your Memorial Day holiday. I’ll be posting some photos and video from the sessions in the next few weeks, then I’m off to Wisconsin to film the music video in my hometown of Sheboygan.
Are you ready for summer? Me too.
Summer’s coming up fast, and I’ve been busy working on a new single to inspire you and your friends in your warm-weather escapades. It’s called “Landlocked!,” and it’s a collaboration with my longtime pal Ned Brower and his Rooney bandmate Taylor Locke. I’m shooting for an early May release — just in time for the melting of the snow and the emergence of the pasty-white legs.
You can find out more about the colossal musical talents of the two other gentlemen in this photo by going to Ned Brower’s website or the site for Taylor Locke & The Roughs. You can also catch their terrific band Rooney in the U.S. in April, and in Germany/Luxembourg in May.
This apparently came out a while back, but I just got wind of it. American Songwriter magazine asked music journalist/music professor/music artist Peter Cooper to put together a list of 50 Country Songs Every Songwriter Should Know — and he was kind enough to include my song “Bells Of Odilia” in his collection of wonderful songs. Click the headline above to read about all 50 of his selections.
And if that wasn’t enough, the prolific Mr. Cooper also recorded a version of “Bells Of Odilia” for his just-released album The Lloyd Green Album, which has been getting all kinds of amazing reviews. I happened to be blowing through Nashville when he recorded it with the tremendous Kim Carnes supplying harmony vocals, and watching that go down was something I’ll treasure for a long, long time.
So, have a read, and then go have a listen — all compliments of Mr. Peter Cooper.
CR
PS: My original recording of “Odilia” can be found here.
