Album Notes

It became obvious in March, 2020 that the COVID-19 pandemic was truly here to stay and that we were going to need to “shelter in place” for some time. I decided this would be a good time to commit to working on recording a new album.

Recording the album in my home studio, I now realized, meant I would be doing it alone. I could not bring in musician friends to add vocals and other instruments to my mixes as I had in the past.

Some songs I chose for the album had already been recorded. “Home“, “Living in the Woods” and “At the Watch” are song tracks for videos that can be seen on my YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/timlaborie

The lyrics for “Home” were sometimes influenced by video shots I was taking. So it helps to understand the song if you watch the video.

For “At the Watch” I enlisted the help of a wonderful group of children from Sky Soup, an amazing children’s art center near Philadelphia lead by Heather Exley.

“Every Chance I Get” is a recording I had completely forgotten about. I discovered it while searching my computer. The recording file is dated 2016 and the song has changed over these years but I loved hearing this old recording so I kept it.

The outlier here is “Peacemaker” which was recorded 10 year ago at Silvertone Studios and features Chuck McCann on mandolin, Joel Hanna on dobro, and musician/studio engineer Alfred Goodrich on bass.

The remaining six songs were recorded in April and May, 2020, and written during the previous few years.

“What’s Up With That” was inspired during my annual visits to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. “Lost Woman Blues” is just a blues song and not about any woman I actually know. “The Light Just Fades” is about dying and realizing what you will miss.

“Salvation In His Shoes” is a story inspired by something that actually happened. “Persistent Rain” was written after reading Margaret Atwood’s dystopian “MaddAddam” trilogy. As for “What Could Go Wrong,” it seems like my blues songs end up being about writing songs.

Thanks for listening!

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