Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver stopped by the studios of WFDU in New Jersey this past Monday and recorded an interview with Carol Beaugard for her Lonesome Pine RFD program. The guys were in the area for a recording session at Tony Bennett’s studio in Englewood – they tracked on two cuts for Paul Simon’s next album!
The interview with Carol, highlighting their new Gospel recording Light on My Feet, Ready to Fly, will air on Friday (3/26) during her 9:00 a.m. to noon show. You can catch it over the air at 89.1 FM in the New York City metro market, or online at www.wfdu.edu.
Carol tells us that Doyle and the boys were in rare form, and shared some good stories, lots of laughs and, of course, some great music. She especially was struck by one of the songs from the new CD, Teddy Bear Revival.
“Josh Swift told the story of how his friend had written this song and emailed it to him, enthusiastically declaring that the tune had a ‘real Doyle Lawsonish’ sound to it. Josh listened to it at 2 in the morning and loved it. They were in the studio the next day to record the album and he played it for Doyle who loved it as well. They worked up an arrangement for the number on the spot and recorded it right away.”
The song is a great story and has a really unusual twist to telling the story of a young boy who ‘feels the spirit’ as a youth and grows up with that calling in his heart. Doyle commented how much he liked the fact that the song told this scenario in such a unique way that really captured the joy in a child’s heart.
Another funny point – which wasn’t captured on tape but had the whole band busting apart with laughter – was that while we were listening to the song Josh pulled out his iPhone and was playing the dobro breaks on his phone app. Doyle said he needs to get himself a mando app and they could all do a number on stage using their phones. (Now wouldn’t that make a good commercial!)”
The show will be archived for 2 weeks on the WFDU web site if you miss it in real time. It will also air at a later date on WAMU’s Bluegrass Country.
Josh Trivett, Doyle’s new manager, told us that the band had a blast recording with Simon. They were contacted after Paul decided that he wanted to use some bluegrass sounds on this new project. He had asked Jerry Douglas, who has toured and recorded with him in the past, who he should get, and Jerry suggested that he listen to Nashville Bluegrass Band, The Del McCoury Band and Quicksilver. After checking them all out on YouTube, Simon decided that Doyle and company had the sort of blend he liked to hear, and contacted them about coming up to record.
But these were not bluegrass songs they were cutting. Trivett said that one song had a sort of Afro-Cuban beat, but with bluegrass instruments in the mix.
“It was cool to watch him work. After seeing the way bluegrass is produced, it was interesting to see someone who works in a wider spectrum.
The guys were a little uncertain about how they would blend in when they first heard the song, but Paul made it all work perfectly.”
All of the band members were involved in the recording, though Jason Leek just sang and didn’t play bass.
Josh is hoping that an initial conversation about Doyle and Quicksilver doing some shows with Simon after the album comes out in the Fall will come to fruition. Now that would be cool!
