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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. 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 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. My friend Mark Greenberg (The Coctails) played drums. 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.

MP3'S:

Queen City Bound.mp3