Context:

The country gospel songs here are some of my older work.  They are the result of a project where I wanted to make CD for my mother.  She had been requesting me to record something that she would like, and that fit her lifestyle.  She enjoys country gospel, and so I tried to locate some of the classics in the area and interpret them with my stereotypic view of the song from a country gospel perspective.  I generally used lead sheets with the melody line, and chord progressions to develop the structure.  In some cases I used the melody line from a hymnal and developed the chord progressions from the progressions written primarily for keyboards there (i.e., How Great Thou Art).  I took some liberties with the tunes, primarily in terms of tempo but in some cases other elements.  As such some sound very traditional and others are not as close.  However, all are from, to me, the country gospel perspective. 

Equipment:

The drums, and the bass lines, were written and recorded using a Boss DR-5.  The acoustic work is a Martin D-15 mic’ed 12 inches from the sound hole (off axis) using a Radio Shack Optimus 33-3017.  The amps used in this set of music were a Line 6 POD 2.0 for everything save “In the Garden” which was a Line 6 PODXT version 1.3.  The POD 2.0 made use of the “Twang” amp and 4x10 cab.  The POD XT was the “Tweed Deluxe” amp with the default 1x12 cab.  The guitar was an ash bodied rosewood fret board US Fat Fender Telecaster with a Nocaster clean pickup in the bridge.  The initial tracks were recorded into a Boss MR-4 digital 4-treack.  These were then mixed down into a PC having a SoundBlaster Audigy 2 soundcard, into n-Track 3.0.  Final file preps were made using the Creative Labs Sound Recorder. 

Final Comments:

This was my first real “full” recording project.  The project was very rushed, with the whole recording process running only 3 months for all tunes.  As the “due date” for the project was fixed, I did not have time to develop and record additional tunes as I had hoped to do.  While this work, even now, seems pretty tight to me there are mistakes I did not have time to rectify (or didn’t know I made) due to the time line and my skill level at the time.  I also did not have time to develop the improvised lead lines as much as I would have liked.  However, I was pleased with the results of this project.  So while my equipment (and I hope my skills!) have increased a fair bit since this work, I still enjoy listening to these tunes and think it is a nice product.

Tunes