Norman Phipps is my Dad. He has been a musician for many years longer than I have been alive. Dad was never a "pro". He was a truck driver until he retired about ten years ago, but music has always been important to him and he has always one of my favorite musicians. He used to sing songs to my brothers and I when we were kids. Johnny Cash songs were always a big crowd pleaser, but he knew lots of classic country songs. We used to listen to country 8 track tapes in our Escapade motor home when we went on vacation. "Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs" by Marty Robbins and "Ride This Train" by Johnny Cash, Elvis' Sun Years and Buck Owens were a lot of fun to listen to as we drove through the Western deserts from Long Beach, CA to the mountains in Utah.
Anyway, after my Dad retired he started writing original songs. He would record them on a cassette boom box with a built in microphone. He would write songs about things important to him: home, family, friends. I love these recordings. They are simple recordings with Dad and his guitar and the lo fi quality is kind of charming, but I always wanted to bring my Dad up from the Ozarks to record his songs at my studio and have him backed by the best musicians I could find. I finally did. Several weeks ago Kelly Hogan's group The Wooden Leg were practicing at the studio and I realized that Scott Ligon and Joel Patterson would be the perfect guys to play with my Dad. I played them some recordings of my Dad's stuff and they really liked it. We set up a session date. I called my Dad and he said he could make it. I had a lot of great talent at the session. My assistant engineer Ryan Neushafer recorded it, my friend Andrew Collings took amazing photos, my old bandmate Mark Greenberg joined Scott and Joel on the drums. My Mom made sandwiches. I took the Don Was approach to producing the session: get the best people you can, let them do their jobs and try not to say anything.
We recorded five songs in one afternoon. Dad would sit down with the band and show them the songs and the band would make an arrangement and record it with Dad. Scott and Joel are very literate students of classic country recordings. They picked different styles of arrangements for each song. "Queen City Bound" became a classic 60's truck driving song with a Buck Owens production, "Arkansas Line" took on a late 40's Hank Williams sound. "Maruaders" was approached dry and simple, with a sound similar to Johnny Cash's first American Label recordings. Dad came in the next day and we recorded the final vocals. Scott and Joel came back about a week later and overdubbed the solos and extra instruments. Ryan mixed the record with Scott making suggestions to ensure the production matched the arrangements. I had Blaise Barton do the mastering. It was really amazing to have access to so much talent. I'm thrilled with the way it turned out. This record and free MP3 dowloads will be available soon at :http://www.tightshiprecords.com. My eternal thanks to Scott Ligon, Joel Patterson, Mark Greenberg, Andrew Collings, Ryan Neushafer and Blaise Barton, and of course to my Dad, who gave 100% to these recordings. And thanks to Mom for making sandwiches!
