By Chris Moore:
Welcome to another video blog in the Laptop Sessions music video series! Today, I bring you a cover song that was written in the 1950s and was covered on two separate occasions by two of my favorite artists — Johnny Cash and the Band. Cash recorded it most famously on his Folsom Prison concert and the Band included it on their 1968 album Music from Big Pink. Both are great albums, and this is a fun song. I hope you like it…
See you next session!
By Chris Moore:
Thanks for getting your daily dose of acoustic guitar music at https://guitarbucketlist.com today! It only seemed appropriate to start off the work week with a song titled “I Shall Be Released”… This is a cover song originally written by Bob Dylan. Although he never officially released his version on an album, it’s available on the Biograph boxset and on The Essential Bob Dylan. Probably the most polished version is on the Band’s superb 1968 album Music from Big Pink.
I haven’t recorded a Dylan song in a while, so I figured I could sneak yet another one into my list of Laptop Sessions. It was really fun to do and I would have kept my first take if I wasn’t such a perfectionist…
Check out the Laptop Sessions archive for more cover songs and free music videos from our very own Jeff Copperthite…
See you next session!
By Chris Moore:
Hello and welcome to another all-new Laptop Session! Today’s selection is “You Can’t Count On Me,” from the Counting Crows’ new album, Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings. This record is a concept album of sorts, as Adam Duritz sings his way from a raucous Saturday night out on the town to a Sunday morning of realizations. I’ve been really excited about recording a tune from this album — there’s been a lot of good new music this year so far, but this has been one of my favorite albums. To be honest, I didn’t know much about Duritz and company, but I have a lot of respect for him as a songwriter and a performer after listening repeatedly to the album.
I hope you like my cover song version of this song, and if you do, you should check out the official in-the-studio videos posted on the Counting Crows YouTube channel. And check out the Laptop Sessions archive for more quality video blog posts from our very own Jeff Copperthite…
See you next session!
By Chris Moore:
Hello and welcome to the “Title Tracks Week” edition of the Laptop Sessions! Today, I’m proud to pull one out of the archives, dust it off, and present it to you in all its laptop camera – recorded glory… This is the title track from my 2005 album Looking For You – click here to listen!. “Looking For You” is one of only three songs (all included on that album) that I’ve released with drums included in the mix. At the time, Jim officially produced three tracks off the album for me and they are, by far, the standout tracks! With his help and musicianship, I was able to include percussion and background vocals like no other song I had previously released. To this day, I still remember the hours I spent teaching him the songs and learning what I could from his recording style.
“Looking For You” quickly became one of the staples of our band at the time, the trio “Chris, Jim, and Becky.” We played coffee houses and open mic nights, and this song seemed to fit amongst our rather acoustic fare. For whatever reason, I had a hell of a time remembering the words though, so there are some embarrassing live tracks floating around out there. But there is a really great recording of it on our only release as a trio, appropriately titled Live in the Studio – click here to listen!.
Then, in 2006, MoU began recording their debut album – click here to listen!, again with a “live in the studio” sound. Looking for standards that we were comfortable playing, “Looking For You” made the final cut. This, I think, is the definitive version. Years of playing this song finally gelled on this recording, as the three of us were joined by Mike Fusco on drums and Cliff Huizenga on bass.
As a final note, I must admit that I have purposely pushed this song out of our set lists as of late. The reason is certainly not that I don’t like the song; the length of this post should refute that suggestion! (In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever told anyone before, but this was the first harmonica solo I ever played on my own and it really marked the beginning of that instrument in my music.) I’ve felt that the words of the song get buried in a live, electric rock setting, and that’s the real reason it’s been passed over recently. Playing it again tonight was a blast!
I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you’ll come back to https://guitarbucketlist.com tomorrow for an all-new “Title Track” Laptop Session from Jeff Copperthite… it’s sure to be a great one!
See you next session!