photo by joshua black wilkens
It was the last day of January 2008- I was in Seattle and my dad was somewhere in Florida- and my mom sat alone during a thunderstorm on a couch in the house our family bought in 1970 in Hendersonville, TN just outside of Nashville. It is a long white ranch house that sits on a tall hill directly above Old Hickory Lake, surrounded by tall 100 year-old Beech trees. Well the storm outside that night pushed one of those old hollow trees further than it could bend and the broken tree split the house in half, beneath that tree was the roof, 2x4s, insulation, and my frightened mother screaming while trying to figure out if she was dead or alive, crippled or broken. The tree had broken two vertebra in her neck and she was the only one who could call 911- so from her rainy den she did – and within a year she and the house recovered. She is lucky to be alive and being a good, loving, Nashville songwriting son that I am, I got a good song out of her tragedy- as well as a title to my next record.
It has been almost four years since my last release. Since 2006′s The Longest Meow I have brought my 2nd child into the world (Beckham Bare) – experienced divorce – lost my house (divorce)- almost lost my mom – almost lost my son (listen to “The Sky Is The Ground”) – produced my largest musical project (Twistable, Turnable Man: A Musical Tribute to the Songs Shel Silverstein) – got my house back – got a new girlfriend – and got a new baby on the way! I have also finished my 6th full-length CD, A Storm – A Tree - My Mother’s Head, 13 songs that took me four years to write and record.
Last winter with my good friend/engineer/co-writer/producer David Vandervelde, and four of my favorite friends/musicians, we began to organize, edit, write, and arrange my latest pile of riffs, chords, and poems into something that could resemble my next record. By the end of February of this year we felt good enough about the songs to take them into this huge log cabin in Nashville and see about recording them all in two days. After much rehearsal almost all of what you hear on A Storm – A Tree – My Mother’s Head was recorded Feb. 28th and March 1st. I figured after doing my last record in one day – that if I spent two days on this record it’s gonna sound twice as good- right? – maybe. I don’t know- I only know that I included Opie Taylor – Liz Taylor - Darth Vader- murder – cheese burgers-lies – cheating – Jesus – guns - lipstick (not red lipstick though)- Elvis (2 times) – drunks – muscles – fish – Chattanooga – naked swimming at night – wet goats – flaming arrows – blood – bicycles – metal stitches – Jesus Lizard t-shirts – angry bugs – Kosher Oreos – The Dixie Chicks - Necrophilia - and my Mother’s head (you can even hear her screaming on the song).
below is the bbj studio band
photo by avon lyons
above is a video of the creation of a song called “YOUR GOAT IS ON FIRE”
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and feel free to send this to your dad for FATHER’S DAY
Bobby Bare Jr. with Beckham Bare – “Daddy What If” from Jon Grimson on Vimeo.
