Listen up, resonator guitar fans!
Mike Auldridge, Jerry Douglas and Rob Ickes have teamed up to create a new record sure to please slide fans of every kind. It’s a “dobro trio” project, with these three masters picking together in the studio with no additional accompaniment, or pesky vocals getting in the way of the sliding around.
The album is meant to serve as a tribute to Mike, whose pioneering work with Seldom Scene and others starting in the 1970s, rewrote the rules that had existed for the Dobro up to that point. It was recorded during several sessions this year, when their various schedules allowed the three of them to assemble in Maryland where Mike lives.
Auldridge says that the project has both an artistic and a personal meaning for him.
“We’ve recorded a lot of songs that I had only hoped I could record, songs that are part of my history and love affair with the dobro.
Jerry said to me, ‘it’s all about you,’ and he meant it. I’ve known both of these guys since they were teenagers, and I can honestly say that I love them both as if they were my sons, and at the same time, my best friends and favorite dobro players. It’s a pretty amazing feeling.”
Rob tells us that both he and Jerry had been talking with Mike a year ago, and had independently broached the topic of doing some recording.
“I was on a Jimmy Rodgers jag back then, and remembered that Mike’s uncle, Elsworth Cozzens, had recorded with Jimmie in 1928. Mike and I talked about that, and he told me that his uncle had played banjo on In The Jailhouse Now, and Hawaiian guitar on Carolina Sunshine Girl and Treasures Untold.
In the course of those discussions, he mentioned that Jerry had been talking to him about the three of us recording together. I was all for it! Mike’s the guy who got me playing. When I heard his first record, I started trying to play dobro that same day!
Our first sessions for this project were in early 2012, and we just got together to see what would happen with three dobros. From that first day, everything was great. It all just fell into place, and I think we have a great record.
Mike played great on the whole thing. It’s been big fun getting to hang with someone who’s been such an influence on my music.
As a kid, I remember reading an interview in Frets magazine in the mid ’80s about them wanting to do a dobro album, so I thanked them for waiting for me.
It was great for Jerry to take the time out of his schedule to arrange and produce this project. This album really means a lot to him.”
No release date has been set for this as yet unnamed record, but things are progressing nicely for it to arrive early in 2013.
