The party is nailed down at last!
Set your calendars for the night of Dec. 17th 2009, at 7:30 pm- come to The City Cellar of Cartersville GA and see me perform all the songs off my new album, watch the premier of the music video for my new single "We Will Never Die", meet cool peeps and get an album to take home) !
I'm so excited about the party. If you want to see the venue go to www.thecitycellar.com and check it out. Hope you can be there, it's gonna be a fun night!
Well, all the songs are recorded at last! Hooray! Now for the mixing and mastering.... It is great to have everything tracked because it has really helped me get familiar with the tone of the whole project. So....after listening to the songs, I've changed the title of the album. The debut album is entitled "Change. Love. Surrender." The reason for the change is pretty basic, really- as I listened to the songs these three themes seemed to dominate. Every song has at least one of the themes running through it, and some have up to all three! It was a clarifying moment. I knew all these songs were connected, but it was really neat to have a sudden epiphany and realize that three words summed up my state of mind for the thing. Yey!
In other news, I went on the album photoshoot today with my mom (the amazing Cindy Harter- check out my link to her blog) and we got some really great shots. She's so funny, she'll climb up on jagged abandoned fences and say "Just lean your head back like this" as the rust flakes fall like snow and the fence groans threateningly. She'll dive into hay bales, break in to old wearhouses and set up shop in a snake-infested field, all to get her shot. I loved it, it was like a grand adventure. We had a car full of props (literally, we dragged an armchair out into a hay field) and tons of outfits. I would act all modelly in front of a wearhouse with urban backdrop appeal, then dash off to awkwardly change in the car while motorists passed by in the industrial parkway. Then after shaking the oh so unsexy hay out of my hair and donning high heels that I haven't worn in, well, ever, I teetered over to some new location and continued the modelly-ness. Yes. I lead a glamorous life. I joke, but you really do feel famous when you spend the whole day in front of the camera. Even if it is your mom taking the pictures, haha.
People are slowly but surely beginning to enhance my album and make it shine.
William Gaylord has put his prodigious guitar skills on both "Can't Fight" (an edgier track for me, and the most alternative of the album) and "You Are What You Choose", a piano song that I've always wanted to record.
Robert Sims the lead singer of the band Scattered, Smothered and Covered has been kind enough to consent laying down soulful harmonica and harmony on the song "Long, White Robe". This song has deep church roots, and is heavily influenced by sacred harp singing. To find out more about that old mountain sound, go to http://fasola.org/.
Max Ribot , one of the best classical guitarists I've had the pleasure of meeting, is the newest addition to the project and will be making his guitar sing through the strains of "Sweet and Low", a love song that I've had written for a while but which through request, had to be on the album! :)
Last but certainly not least, my own mom Cindy Harter has added beautiful harmonies to "Sky's lullabye", a song for my niece and her Granddaughter, little Sky Noel.
That's it for now! Thank you to all these amazing musicians for sharing your gifts!
Today was yet another magical day of recording the album with my ptoducer, Will. I brought sustenence in the form of California rolls and we got to work, tracking two songs, "White Robe" and a brand new, never-before-heard track "We Will Never Die". However, the clouds kept interrupting recording. Literally. Like magic, as soon as I'd start singing some thunderhead would butt in and rumble for a good long minute. We'd wait for a moment, start again and interrupting cloud would be at it again. It was enough to almost make me a believer in Zeus. It was like prank calls from heaven.
After we finished recording, we sat down and set up a date for the cd release party!! Everybody mark your calendars for Dec. 18th!! It's gonna be so fun and you'll get to hear the songs before anyone else:) peace for now!
Maggie
So, I spent the afternoon playing all sorts of ambient tones on a keyboard with my hardworking and ever hilarious producer, Will. We were enchanted by tones like "pulse" that sounded like windchimes faintly heard from a distance, but we laughed our heads off at other tones like "dissecting aliens" which to be honest sounded like farts in the bathtub. Haha, yeah pretty bad.
Recording has been so much fun, and it's glorious and sad all at the same time that we will be done within a month. Mixing will start in mid-October and then mastering, printing and voilà! Album by Christmas:) Stat tuned, I'm figuring out where and when to have a cd release party and everyone will be invited to the glorious event! Love you and my blessings! Maggie
