IN HIS WORDS
The Psalngs
Album 2007
AVAILABLE ON YOUR FAVOURITE STREAMING SERVICES
Brian Ahern worked at CBC television as musical director for Singalong Jubilee from 1961 to 1974, where he met Anne Murray, eventually producing over a dozen LPs for her. He met and married Emmylou Harris and produced over a dozen more records for her. He also produced records for Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, George Jones, and Roy Orbison, and for Trio – Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt and Dolly Parton. My friend and recording engineer, Danny Patton, introduced my demo’s to Brian in 2006 and Brian agreed to produce my music.
Brainstorming about who to ask to play, Brian brought me to T Bone Burnett’s home in Brentwood, Los Angeles. T Bone made coffee, listened and suggested we start with Jim Keltner. He said, “If we get Jim, everybody else will fall.” For those unfamiliar, and just for example, if you were George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Jeff Linn (ELO) and Roy Orbison (together, “The Travelling Willburys”) you could probably get any drummer you wanted. They picked Jim.
Brian phoned Jim before the first coffee was gone, Jim had a few weeks in June signed on. He recommended Hutch Hutchinson (Bonny Raite, Jackson Brown) on bass, Dean Parks (of Steely Dan, David Crosby and Graham Nash, Michael Jackson, Barbara Streisand, and 1,000 others) guitars, Greg Leisz (Bill Frizzell, Eric Clapton, Emmylou Harris, Joni Mitchell, John Fogarty) on guitars, particularly slide and steel. We got Matt Rawlings (Lyle Lovett, Mark Knopfler, Willie Nelson, Allison Krause) piano, and Patrick Warren (Fiona Apple, Wallflowers, and toured with Tom Waites, Bob Dylan, and Bruce Springsteen) various keyboards.
One day at the beginning of recording Brian and I were driving to the studio and he mentioned he’d had a call from Al Kooper. In 1958 Al played with the Royal Teens on “Who Likes Short Shorts – I like Short Shorts.” In 1965 he played Hammond Organ on Bob Dylan’s “Like A Rolling Stone” and joined The Blues Project. He founded Blood Sweat and Tears, and also played on records for BB King, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Alice Cooper and Cream. Brian called Al and he showed up at Village Recorder two days later.
“Psalngs” is pronounced, like the first part of psalms and last part of bongs, “songs.” The psalngs are about who we are, where we’ve come and where we could go – if we decide to.
On recording day one, with coffee and muffins, I played the first Psalng for the musicians, “Our Town,” solo. Greg Leisz said “That’s a pretty good song. How many more of those have you got?”
By John Lefebvre
All’s Well
BOOK
Good With Money
BOOK
Initial
ALBUM
Psalngs
ALBUM