Creative Caffeine: Nashville Recording Studio

The following is from The Bluegrass Blog.  We transferred a few of the recordings here at Creative Caffeine from analog tape into pro tools last year… looking forward to hearing the final product.

Rejoice all you Del-heads McCoury Music is preparing to release a 5 disc, definitive collection of the music of Del McCoury on May 12.

Celebrating 50 Years Of Del McCoury will include 50 tracks marking Del’s five decades in bluegrass, plus a 12 page color booklet.

All of the music was recorded with The Del McCoury Band, the bulk of it in a recent set of marathon sessions. These involved recutting better than 30 songs from the first 40 years of Del’s long career, coupled with 18 top tracks from his recent recordings.

The box set will retail for $49.95, or as Chris Harris with McCoury Music put it, “50 years/50 songs/50 dollars.” This is one every McCoury fan will want to own, and any serious collector of bluegrass music should have in their library.

Original Article:
The Bluegrass Blog » Celebrating 50 Years Of Del McCoury: bluegrass music news

The Nashville Potato Guns recording their upcoming release… wow!  Wait till you hear these guys!

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STATION, Texas, Jan. 22 UPI — A U.S. biochemist says he has uncovered the secrets of the unique sound of original Stradivarius and Guarneri violins.

Joseph Nagyvary, a professor emeritus of biochemistry at Texas A&M University, has spent 33 years trying to prove his theory that chemicals used on the instruments are responsible for the distinctive sounds of the violins, the university reported.

The research is published in the journal Public Library of Science.

Working with Renald Guillemette of the university’s geology department and Clifford Spiegelman, a professor of statistics, Nagyvary obtained tiny wood samples from violin restorers and burned the wood slivers to ash.

Tests showed numerous chemicals in the wood, including borax, fluorides, chromium and iron salts.

“The presence of these chemicals all points to collaboration between the violin makers and the local drugstore and druggist at the time,” Nagyvary said Thursday in a release. “Their probable intent was to treat the wood for preservation purposes. Both Stradivari and Guarneri would have wanted to treat their violins to prevent worms from eating away the wood because worm infestations were very widespread at that time.”

Nagyvary said he believes the findings could change the way in which fine violins are made today.

via: Secrets of Stradivarius violins discovered – UPI.com

Couldn’t resist snapping this pic a week or so ago of our very yellow tree.  Snapped it just in time, most of the leaves have fallen by now.  Our driveway is very colorful!

John Lennon shows off new automated console. Sean sits by his side.

John Lennon (with son Sean) shows off the new automated mixing board at New York’s Hit-Factory, 1980. “It looks like he’s turning Sean on to the world of music,” says photographer Bob Gruen.

Full Article:

Great Singers In the Studio and Behind the Scenes : Photos : Rolling Stone

The Infamous Stringdusters are the new vanguard of acoustic music. Well crafted songs, vivid arrangements, instrumental virtuosity, stunning improvisation, unique individuality and complete harmony… Bluegrass, Rock, Country, Blues, Folk, and Jazz, the “IS” is American Acoustic Music.

Catch the band as they play for the Bluegrass Underground radio taping held down in the Cumberland Caverns Volcano Room, near Fall Creek Falls State Park, in Middle, Tennessee.

Visit BluegrassUnderground.com to purchase tickets.

Bluegrass Underground is taped live 333 feet below ground at Cumberland Caverns in McMinnville Tn inside of what was named by the first people to behold the natural amphitheatre, The Volcano Room. Here water and time entwined 3.5 million years ago to create one of the most acoustically pure natural spaces on earth. No man-made sound reaches the Volcano Room and the living rock hued amid the eons is jagged and uneven, providing limited echo.

The primordial silence and perpetual darkness give way each month to the sounds of the finest music of the greatest bluegrass musicians on earth. Regardless of outside temperature, the Volcano Room is a constant 56 degrees.

Your experience at Bluegrass Underground begins at Cumberland Caverns in the light of day. Tour guides lead you through the cave entrance and into another world. Your subterranean descent takes you past underground pools and waterfalls and to the Volcano Chamber where you will enjoy music in a venue unlike any other you are likely to ever experience And don’t worry about silencing your cellphone…you won’t find any service here.

Buy tickets and view schedule:

Bluegrass Underground: Bluegrass music from Cumberland Caverns broadcast live on WSM 650: Venue

Our good friend Dave Shipley(Foxwood Mastering), brought us about 12 more John Hartford 2″ tapes today for transfer into pro tools.  These are more tapes from the Aereoplane sessions as well as some later 80s sessions.  I am blown away by the sheer quantity of all of these recordings… “just keep the tape rolling”  was definitely the idea.

above: “Recording The Price of Peace”

“For a girl to say goodbye to her daddy’s smile is rough — can’t cover it up.”That’s one of the lines in a song written by 12-year-old Alyssa Gaddis of Springfield after hearing her father talk about deployment ceremonies for National Guard troops being sent overseas to Iraq and Afghanistan.Alyssa’s father, Chief Warrant Officer Jim Gaddis, isn’t being deployed, but after hearing the stories and witnessing a ceremony firsthand, the Springfield Christian School seventh-grader sat down and composed the lyrics to “The Price of Peace,” a song about a girl saying goodbye to her father as he prepares for war.

“It’s very sad, seeing the little girls clutch to their dad’s neck and cry,” Alyssa said Monday of the deployment event she witnessed. “That was hard to just watch, knowing that they are leaving and they are not going to come back for a long time.”

Full Article:

Young songwriter honors ‘price of peace’ – Springfield, IL – The State Journal-Register