We heard last week from Jon Weisberger, who caught us up on a new project he is producing for Missy Werner.
“Missy was in Nashville at Ben Surratt’s Rec Room studio last week to do some recording for her next album. With tracks cut with her regular band already in the can and more to come, we decided to include a session made with some of my favorite Nashville musicians, one that would challenge Missy a little more stylistically – a challenge she more than met!
The group on these cuts consists of Sierra Hull (mandolin, octave mandolin), Megan McCormick (guitar), Maggie Estes White (fiddle) and Thomas Wywrot (banjo, guitar), plus me on bass. I was really happy with this crew, even though I was sobered for a moment when I realized that I was older than any two of them put together!
I’m sure readers are familiar with Sierra, but maybe less so with the rest. Megan’s a fabulous guitar player, singer and songwriter – a cousin to Frank Solivan, whose latest album she appears on, and whom I’d used on my solo album a few years ago; she plays a lot of electric these days, but she’s great on a flat-top, too.
Maggie was actually one of the Young American Bluegrass Idols with Sierra on the IBMA Awards show back in 2003; she just graduated from Belmont, and currently does a lot of freelance work between Vickie Vaughn Band gigs. Thomas played with the Isaacs between 2008 and 2011; he’s an inventive player on both banjo and guitar, and I’ve been a fan for a long time.
Material cut at the session came from a variety of sources. We recorded a new version of Gretchen Peters’ wonderful Main Street, a song from Larry Cordle & Erin Enderlin (Dead Man Walking), and some great numbers by Mark Simos, Sarah Siskind and Ashby Frank, plus one that Jeremy Garrett and I wrote. All the tracking was done on Monday, and Missy cut all her vocals on Tuesday – a busy and productive couple of days.
There’s been a lot of demand from fans and broadcasters for new music from Missy, so we’re working to finish the Ashby Frank song, I Always Do, in time to have available at the World of Bluegrass next month. Artie Werner and Stephen Mougin will be in to sing harmony vocals soon, and we’ll get it out the door just as fast as we can!”
We’ll be looking forward to hearing this one.
