Deep Dive #1: Wood Stove Whine

It’s been a great release month, I’m so pleased with the warm reception our debut album has received. Thanks to all of you for listening and sharing your thoughts and praises. (If you haven't had a chance to catch up with it, it's here.)

For the next few weeks I’m going to go through the tracks, one by one in order, and take a deeper dive into how I wrote them and how we developed, recorded and refined them.

Without further ado…

Deep Dive #1: Wood Stove Whine

Every song starts from a unique jumping off point but the initial spark is always a bit of inspiration. It might be an idea that makes me feel a certain way; it might be a turn of phrase I have never quite thought of before; it might be a few words that make me laugh.

Where This Song Began

Honestly the initial seed of this song was my friend Kevin Shoemaker’s voice (I’ve never told him this, so hi Kevin! And...surprise! You were the spark that ignited this song.) Those of you who know him are aware of Kevin’s captivating powers as a singer and performer and I really wanted to write a song that he might sing harmonies on. In the end I would acquire Kelly Jo Reed as a bandmante, who became my permanent vocal harmonist and it is her amazing voice that you hear on this track and not Kevin’s...but it was Kevin who initially inspired me. I was trying to write a sort of Towns Van Zandt love song with “Civil Wars” style harmonies (see their debut album, Barton Hollow, if you really like beautiful things.)

What I ended up with was something quite different...but it has echos of those things. Towns was certainly prone to ballads of love, loss and desperation and “Wood Stove” has those notes. The original title of the song was “A Desperate Man.” But it took on it’s own life, as good songs always do. There are two things I’m most proud of in this song and the first has to do with melody.

Songcraft

The verses have a relatively simple melody, though the chord progression is more involved than your average 3 or 4 chord folk song. But when you get to the chorus, things get more interesting. The chorus jumps off with a lilting cadence of higher, then lower notes that somehow capture the emotion of the song sonically - one of those things that comes to you (or maybe come through you) in ways you could never recreate on purpose.

I remember where I was when I started writing the lyrics - oddly I was alone on the basketball court at my neighborhood YMCA and they just started to come. The first verse appeared in my head more or less as it stands: “Love me baby / love me soft and true / love me loud enough that I could find my way to you / I’m so lost without you, I can barely find my shoes / love me baby, I’m begging you.” At first I couldn’t tell if it was too simplistic. You know, begging the beloved for their love (something Rumi is prone to do), and the phrase about being so lost I can barely find my shoes...but I liked the twist of “love me loud enough that I can find my way to you” - the idea that love might have a volume, if it’s strong enough.

Now back to the “lilting chorus” - I also remember where I was when I wrote that and it was in my work truck, passing by the three ponds and the rose garden. The chorus melody was sort of the answer to the question “what fresh melody do I really want to hear after the first verses I’ve written.” And when it came to me, I knew immediately it was right. When Patrick (bass) first heard this song, it was this chorus melody that most captivated him - in fact his initial reaction was “how many times can we bring the chorus back in the song? Let’s add three more.” Which I didn’t do but I really appreciated his enthusiasm.

The last thing I’m especially pleased with is a lyric from the second verse: “A lid is stuck on tight that only your hand can unscrew.” Honestly this may be the lyric I’m most proud of from any song I’ve ever written and, though a few people have said they also like that one, I actually have no idea how good it is...I think I love it because it’s so uniquely mine.

Editing, Recording and Production

Colin Lester Fleming played many important roles as producer and the first was to sit with me and rearrange songs so they flowed better. In this song, he encouraged me to change the location of the bridge (“I’ll be the man you hope to find…”) so that it came just before the instrumental at the end. As was the case with all of his suggestions, I was resistant at first, then I trusted his judgement, then I realized he was absolutely right. So if you saw us Live last year, you heard a different version of Wood Stove than what we have on the record.

Then came the question “what sound should Wood Stove have on the album? It sounded great with just Pat on bass and Kelly Jo on Harmonies but for the recording we all imagined something a bit bigger. I was in the midst of a major love affair with the music of a Boston folk band called Honeysuckle (stop reading this blog post right now and get you to their streaming music!) - when I was auditioning producers, I actually reached out to them to find out who had produced their albums, and this is actually how I found Colin. So when it came time to hit the studio, Colin already had a close relationship with those folks which meant (and I still can’t really believe this) that it is the banjo and mandolin player from my favorite local band that’s playing on three of my tracks (Wood Stove, Gambler’s Crutch and Sleepin’ In A Toolshed.) Along with Theo Brierley on stand up bass, Ben and Chris’s sound is much of what defines this song.

The vocals from Kelly Jo and I (and my acoustic guitar) are at the heart of it and the banjo/mando/bass breathes live into it all. Finally we brought in Steve Saddler who is just an inspiration on the lap steel guitar and dobro, and he put down the understated dobro licks you hear (most notable on the second half of the instrumental at the end of the song) and it was, I think you will agree, the icing on the cake. It just made it lively and perfect.

I’m not sure if Colin will agree with me on this (he’s the one who put in the major hours of production work) but I think Wood Stove was one of the songs that required the least amount of fussy production - the job was just to take what we had and make it sound like itself. Which Colin did masterfully. One of my favorite little tweaks involved the chorus vocals - KJ and I came out hot singing the refrains (“Won’t you think about the winter time”) which had a sort of unpleasant yelly quality on the recording...all Colin had to do was bring the volume down, just for that part and what result was an absolutely DELIGHTFUL “yelly” quality, which is what you hear on the recording. I feel like it really makes the chorus swoon and I feel so pleased with that part.

Once Michelle Mancini (https://www.demifugue.com/) worked her mastering magic, the blend of sounds and volumes was soft and strong and lovely.

I’m curious what you have to say about “Wood Stove Whine”! Please leave your thoughts in the comments.

Special thanks to Sierra Rothberg (http://www.lusterity.com/) for the terrific “Wood Stove” cover art.

You can listen to the album on every streaming platorm or buy it on our website.