By Jim Fusco

Welcome everyone to the first new Jim Fusco Laptop Sessions cover song video for over a year and a half!  I can’t believe it- doesn’t feel like that long ago AT ALL.  The last cover video I did was “What Am I Doing Hanging ‘Round” by the Monkees on February 7th of 2013.  Yikes.

As all fans of the music blog know, I’m releasing a new album called “The Easy Ways” in September!  It’s been the spark I needed to get back into recording more Laptop Sessions cover song videos.  I’ve compiled an incredible list of songs over the past 18 months and I can’t wait to get back into the full swing of it.  I’ll even be re-recording some of my older videos.  Yes, even I messed-up now and again, so I’m going to finally fix those mistakes and make the videos the best they can be.  I went back and listened to over 220 cover song videos I’ve done in the past and only found 14 that need to be redone.  That’s not so bad!  I may do a few others that were poorly lit (or when I didn’t shave, was in my pajamas, etc.), as well.

Speaking of lighting, I’m still trying to perfect it, but I’ve got a new lighting kit to go along with my new video recording process.  I’m now recording on my new iPad (should we change it to the “Tablet Sessions”?) with my trusty ZOOM H2 microphone.  I”m also doing the video editing on the iPad.  It’s so much faster and easier, but I’ve noticed a lot of features are lost on the watered-down mobile version.  Thankfully I’ve found workarounds for the issues I’ve found so far.  I hope there are updates to the app in the future that will allow me to enhance the colors in the video and normalize the audio better.

But these first few videos I’m doing came out pretty good and they took less than a quarter of the time it used to take me to record.  And that’s the biggest part- I’ll do many more videos if they’re easy to create.  That’s what was great about the Laptop Sessions in the first place: I could just open the laptop and hit record.  But now, I’ve got to light it properly, have a nice background, and even comb my hair!  I’ve noticed that people really like seeing a nicely lit frame with my electric guitars in the background and I think some of my older videos don’t get viewed much anymore because of their poor video quality.

So now, onto today’s video:

“Suspicious Minds” is a song by Elvis Presley that he debuted around the time of his big comeback special in 1968.  I really need to see that video- I heard he really knocked it out of the park.  Isn’t it so sad that the man was only in his early thirties and he already had to make a “comeback”?  That’s show-business, I guess.  Anyway, the song was a big hit for Elvis and it’s been a song I’ve known and loved for just about my whole life.  It’s a fun one to sing, too, as it has some real passion in that slower middle section.  I hope I did the song justice!

Stay tuned for an original song to come at you next Wednesday for my first Original Wednesday post for quite some time.  I’ll be alternating original songs and cover songs until my new album comes out.  In the meantime, you should be checking out http://jimfusco.com for previews of some of my new songs, plus the album cover artwork that will blow you away!  See you all again next week and enjoy, “Suspicious Minds”, originally done by Elvis Presley!