Tag Archives: becky daly

“Surrender To Me” (McGuinn, Clark, & Hillman Cover)

Posted on by
Reply

By Jim Fusco:

Welcome to your Monday, Monday edition of the Laptop Sessions with me, Jim Fusco!

If you take a look at the last few posts, you’ll notice all the work I’ve been doing over the past 24 hours.  I’ve managed to mix, master, and put online three concerts worth of material.  The last one has 35 songs!  Then, I finally posted my photos from our TNA Wrestling show back in May.  Finally, I went through and backed-up literally 100 gb of data that was clogging up my laptop’s harddrive.  I put all of it on DVDs, which meant that I needed to complete everything before I backed it up and deleted it from my hard drive.

This is the first time in about nine months that the coffee table is clear of five spindles of DVDs.

Today, I bring you a song that Chris, Becky, and I have been playing since the beginning.  Back in late high school, I fell in love with the music of Roger McGuinn, Gene Clark, and Chris Hillman.  I mean, I was already a fan of the Byrds, but we had recentely gotten this album called “McGuinn, Clark, and Hillman”.  It was recorded in the mid-seventies, long after the original Byrds broke up and reformed.

A few tracks on this album, including the first track (which Jeff did as a Laptop Session- Click HERE to view it!) meant a lot to me at the time.  I was with my first girlfriend (and so proud that I had a CD player in the car- my 1990 Camaro) and the way we got together was a little weird.  We kinda had a thing going a year or so earlier, but then something happened to make us not talk for a long time.  I’m being vague not because I want to be, but because I honestly don’t remember.  That’s why I wrote in a journal every single day, I guess.  I’ll have to go back and read up on it.  Anyway, when we finally made it happen, I just thought the song “Long Long Time” was perfect for it.  I hope you’ll listen closely to the words in Jeff’s version and you’ll see what I mean.

“Surrender To Me” is a great song for a couple of reasons- mostly because of McGuinn’s incredible guitar work.  I actually based our live version half on the album version and half on the acoustic demo with Hillman and McGuinn.  Having Chris there to play the rhythm guitar (back when we first started playing live, he had a ton of trouble doing harmony parts while playing), Becky singing with me, and me playing a guitar solo I could actually handle, this was a prime choice.  I just wish more people had heard of it.  But, that’s okay- most people probably think it’s an original, which is major points for me!

Actually, this song is a cover itself.  Neither McGuinn, Clark, or Hillman wrote this tune.  But I still think it’s a great one and a standout track on the album.  Coming up on my next Session starts my suite of videos recorded in the great outdoors.  These videos are part of what the Laptop Sessions is all about, coupled with those Jeff did while on vacation- they’re LAPTOP Sessions!  We can record them anywhere and bring them to you from whereever you may be.  Enjoy today’s Session!



More Laptop Sessions covers

What Love Has Joined Together: A Playlist in Honor of Jim’s Wedding

Posted on by
Reply

By Chris Moore:

As a special treat for all you Fusco-Moore music blog faithfuls, this post is in honor of Laptop Sessions founder Jim Fusco’s wedding to Becky Daly over the weekend.  That’s right; as of July 25th, 2009, Jim is no longer a single man.

Sorry, ladies…

As part of my wedding gift to them, I sifted through the 10,000 plus songs on my iTunes and created a playlist to commemorate their marriage.  As you skim through the bands and titles below, you’ll find that the theme is pretty obvious — two people getting together in a relationship (1, 2), getting married (5, 7, 11), and the new life that follows (8, 10, 12, 14).  Of course, there’s some mention of Saturday night (4) and the bonus tracks are all about the honeymoon — can you guess where that’s going to be taking place?

I hope you enjoy the playlist rundown, and I encourage you to leave comments for the newlyweds here on this post!

TRACK LISTING:

1 )  “Got to Get You Into My Life” – The Beatles
2 )  “Better Together” – Jack Johnson
3 )  “Hope You Love Me Like You Say You Do” – Huey Lewis & The News
4 )  “Almost Saturday Night” – Gene Clark & Carla Olson
5 )  “Chapel of Love” – The Beach Boys
6 )  “I’ll Always Love You (Day After Day)” – Dean Martin
7 )  “Wear My Ring Around Your Neck” – Elvis Presley
8 )  “What Love Has Joined Together” – The Temptations
9 )  “Really Love You” – Paul McCartney
10) “Ideal Woman” – William Shatner
11) “Wedding Song” – Bob Dylan
12) “A New Life For Us” – The Now People
13) “Satisfied” – Ringo Starr
14) “Believe In Life” – Eric Clapton
15) “This is Love” – George Harrison
16) “One True Vine” – Wilco

BONUS TRACKS:

17) “The Honeymoon Song” – The Beatles
18) “The Hula Hula Boys” – Warren Zevon
19) “Rocking Chair in Hawaii” – George Harrison
20) “Rock-A-Hula Baby” – Elvis Presley
21) “Hawaii” – The Beach Boys

Related posts

“Have You Here” (Jim Fusco original song)

Posted on by
3

By Jim Fusco:

And, welcome back!  Today is Wednesday, and here on the best acoustic music blog ever conceived, that means it’s time for an original song!  Today, I bring you a cut off of my new album, “Halfway There”, available now at http://jimfusco.com.

This song is the most personal one on the album and is really the most blunt song I’ve written in a long time.  It’s not meant to be angry or anything- it’s meant to ask questions of both myself and someone else.

Basically, I’m saying: “Hey, I’ve been trustworthy for over six years and still I feel that I’m not being fully trusted.”  The song pretty much speaks for itself after that.

This was the last song I wrote for the album, save for the bonus track.  To me, I can definitely tell that this was written after the bulk of the other songs.  Songs for an album always have a “feel” to them and it took me quite a while to record this track and make it “fit”.  But, I love the tune and the chord progression.  Fans of Stone Temple Pilots will hear the similarity between the riff of this song and the one in “Plush”, which I was listening to a lot at the time.  I didn’t realize it until afterward.  But, the similarity is just like an, “Oh, yeah, I see what you mean,” more than anything.

So, I hope you enjoy this original song.  It’s really one of my favorites off of the new album and the chord progression to the chorus is one of my favorites to play, too.   Have a great day!

Related posts

“Only A Dream” – an MoU Original Acoustic Rock Song

Posted on by
1

By Jim Fusco:

For my first trick…

Welcome to my first Original Wednesday original acoustic song music video for the year 2009!  It’s Jim Fusco here with a great song that we chose to kick-off our (and by “our”, I mean the band Masters of the Universe, or MoU) second album, “Homestead’s Revenge”.  The song is “Only A Dream” and it’s a chorus I wrote the tune to, but never did anything else with.

I remember the day very vividly.  It was one of our band songwriting sessions and I remember finally fleshing-out the chorus with the help of Chris, Mike,  Becky, and Cliff.  Then, I ran over to the piano and started to work out chord progressions for the verses.  I came up with the very interesting Em7 to Bm chord progression and I really love the tune that goes along with it.  I remember sitting there working and hearing Becky and Chris deciding on words to go into the chorus of the song.

I took my ideas over to the rest of the band and we worked out the words.  We came up with this image of a man in a jail cell.  The conversation went something like this: “How about a man locked in a jail cell that’s dreaming about getting out?”  “Oh yeah- like he’s locked in there!” “Okay, let’s see- ‘Locked in solitary confinement…’”  “No, that doesn’t work with the tune…” “Locked in solidarity…” “That doesn’t make sense, though.” “Oh, but it does!  The guy is locked up AND he’s all alone!” “Perfect!”

And that’s how the writing session went- we scrutinized everything but were able to paint a very realistic image of the idea we were getting across.  Why don’t you just listen and find out what that message is?

I also remember Mike returning from the back room, playing his middle-8.  I love that part of the song and it leads right back into the chorus very well.  He did that on “These Streets” from the same album.  The lyrics are great on the middle-8 to “These Streets”- we were thinking about that kind of great fast-paced life you think you have in high school  and threw in, “Live like it’s 1999,” because I was a freshman/sophomore in 1999.

Also, I was very excited when we all did the vocals.  On the original (which you can hear by going to MoU’s Official Website), you’ll hear double-tracked vocals from each of the five members of the band on the choruses and backgrounds, PLUS the lead vocals.

Some fun facts: Chris, Cliff, Mike, and I recorded our vocals together and we dubbed Becky’s much softer voice later on two other tracks so I could handle it better in the mix.  It isn’t easy blending a female voice into four other male voices.  But, my voice must not be too far off from a female’s voice, which made it easier to mix.  Why do I say that?  Well, on the middle-8, you’ll hear the backing vocals come in.  I love that part.  Well, on that section, Becky doesn’t sing- it’s just Mike’s lead, then Mike, Chris, Cliff, and I on backing vocals.  I sang the high part (doing my best Becky impression) because we seamlessly wove the backing vocals around Mike’s lead, allowing us to use only four other backing vocal harmony parts.  I remember doing those backing vocals that night with the boys and we were all so incredibly excited.  After we finished each good take, we’d get so stoked about it.  The greatest backing vocals I think I’ve ever heard are during the second half of the second verse.  The way that some of the vocals move around and some stay the same…it’s really a stroke of genius on my part! 🙂  Want to hear just the vocals-only section?  Click HERE and you’ll go to the Albums page on the MoU website.  The clip of only the vocals from that section will play in the background.  Click around to the other pages on the site and you’ll hear more rare vocals-only clips from the album!

Well, I hope you enjoy this great original song.  It was truly a collaborative effort- a great, catchy song- that was the perfect album-starter.  Until next Tuesday, I hope you have a great week.  Make sure to come back tomorrow for your Jeff Copperthite Thumpin’ Thursday acoustic cover song music video!

Related posts