The very first Walnut Whales recording was recorded just a few weeks after I had started singing, out of the blue, started singing. And the voice, you can hear how uncomfortable I am with it, and how terrified I am with it. ↗
Songs like the Buck Owens tune, for example, are very simple and straightforward, and recording it really gave me a chance to get into and get a sense of Buck's personality, a feel for that whole Bakersfield sound. ↗
Today, with a recording, he can hear the thing enough times until he really gets acquainted with the language, and then he can begin to make an estimate of the intrinsic, aesthetic value of that piece of music. ↗
My son Wesley has just turned 13. He was 12 during the recording of this record and he is quite a drummer already and has been studying drums since he was four, but he's also very interested in African percussion and studies percussion. ↗
When recordings replaced concerts as the dominant mode of hearing music, our conception of the nature of performance and of music itself was altered. ↗