James Lee Stanley

As most of you know, I’ve been in Europe for the past three weeks, enjoying a well earned vacation with Eveline.   I spent several hours of each of the previous ten days sitting on the balony of the Spendour of the Seas as we cruised the Adriatic from Venice to Mykonos and back, playing my guitar and singing.

I had been working on my new CD, Backstage at the Resurrection all year and for most of July, all of August and half of September had been working relentlessly.

This was a good break and a good chance for me to distance myself from the project and hear it with fresh ears when I returned.

Every day on the balcony, I would play selections from the two CD’s that I am drawing my live show from and then work my way into the songs that I had recorded for the Backstage at the Resurrection.

This way I became accustomed to hearing them with one guitar and one voice, so that any weaknesses in composition would present themselves.    With one exception, I had been working on the songs for at least a year, so nothing really presented itself at this stage.

Now comes the part that I want to impart to you today.   

Upon returing to the states, I spent all day Monday in the studio listening to what I had already recorded, which for the most part are fully orchestrated recordings.

The fact that I hadn’t heard them in three weeks coupled with the live one voice/one guitar versions I had been hearing as I played them, gave me an insight I didn’t previously have.

I decided to go back to each recording and bring up just the guitar and voice and ascertain that they delivered the goods—by themselves.    Not that they would be complete recordings by themselves, but just hear that I had done what needed to be done with the vocal and the guitar.

When I tour, I tour solo, one voice, one guitar, some discrete effects and my, ahem…legendary wit.   

Consequently, I wanted to know that people  who took home the CD after a concert would not be disappointed, while at the same time I want them to be recordings that stand up to repeated listenings and can be played in a variety of media.   I want this music experienced, as do we all with regard to our art.

When I return from a series of concerts this week, I will be home for the rest of the year, with the exception of the Far-West and Northeast  Folk Alliance Conferences.

I will then implement this technique of listening to me and my guitar and then bringing up other instruments around it to serve the recording and the goal.    And I’ll be doing it with fresh ears.

So the advice today…take a break from your work.    Get away from it for a long enough period of time to be able to hear or see what’s there and not what you want to be there.