New project from Missy Werner

Last year, we posted about a lovely album from Missy Werner, called Drifting And Dreaming. Missy has a fine voice, and a great knack for choosing songs that suit her style.

We’ve heard this week from Jon Weisberger, who is producing her next project, with a progress report on what is sure to be a memorable album.

Here are Jon’s comments, plus a sneak audio peek.

“We completed all the tracking with Missy’s band (Jeff Roberts, banjo; Tim Strong, guitar & vocals, and Missy’s husband, Artie Werner, bass & vocals;) and guests Mike Witcher (dobro), Aaron Till (fiddle) and Jennifer Strickland (vocals) this past weekend at Ben Surratt’s Rec Room studio, with Ben behind the board. Dwight McCall, who produced Drifting And Dreaming, set a really high bar for me as producer on this project, and I’m excited at how it’s turning out.

I hope that listeners will not only enjoy Missy’s great singing and the fine work of her regular band, but the material, too; choosing songs was a big part of the effort on this one. There are some brand new songs from folks like Jennifer, Ashley Lewis, Lisa Shaffer (it was a privilege for me to write with these three!), Mark Simos and Brink Brinkman, and there are nods to the Bluegrass Cardinals and Lynn Morris that a lot of folks will probably be familiar with (Journey To My Savior’s Side and Blue Skies And Teardrops), as well as a bit of a tribute to Dwight’s dad, the late Jim McCall, who wrote I Like The Country.

But we’ve also got some songs that we felt hadn’t gotten as much attention that they’ve deserved – Stephen Mougin’s Last Goodbye Today, for one, which was recorded a few years ago by Fragment, and Leaves In The Wind, the title track of a wonderful album by the Czech band Relief, for another, and we snagged a couple of songs from country music – a great Terri Clark song, Just The Same, that Missy sings with Chris Jones, and a cut from Trace Adkins’ first album, If I Fall, that was brought into bluegrass some years ago by Fastest Grass Alive.

One of the earliest choices, though, was a song that Jeremy Garrett and I wrote last fall called Endlessly – and as soon as she’d chosen it, Missy decided that she wanted to get Frank Solivan in to sing it with her.  She and her band opened for Frank when he came through the Cincinnati area a while ago, and they really hit it off, so it was a natural call – and, as it turned out, Frank and I had done some co-writing together, and he and Jeremy have been friends for years, so it made it one of those characteristically close-knit bluegrass deals.

Frank was in Nashville in early March to attend Leadership Bluegrass, and though he claimed fatigue when he came into Ben’s studio after the first day’s session, he sounded great, and he and Missy really blended well together. A big thanks to Frank on that one!

Endlessly: [http://traffic.libsyn.com/thegrasscast/endlessly.mp3]

To celebrate the completion of tracking, and to give folks a heads-up about the album – and a chance to hear what we think is a mighty fine duet – Missy is making Endlessly available as a free download to everyone who signs up for her newsletter at her ReverbNation page.  We hope your readers will enjoy hearing it as much as we enjoyed making it!”

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About the Author

John Lawless

John had served as primary author and editor for The Bluegrass Blog from its launch in 2006 until being folded into Bluegrass Today in September of 2011. He continues in that capacity here, managing a strong team of columnists and correspondents.