Silas Scarborough was only the sideman for this one and was proud to play it that way because it was such a wild gas to see the Mystery Lady jumping around while she sang and knocked the song out of the world. It was a problem sometimes because she would get so much into the song, she would whack the beat on the side of the mike so I would be wailing no, no, pleased don't do that (the recording process picked up every bit of that).
It's an obvious cover of "Rebel Yell" but maybe not so obvious when a woman sings it and delivers it hard. I'm immensely proud of her and my only regret is my originals were not far enough along to be workable with her on them. I was running a stack of seven or eight synthesizers, most as sound generator, and they were driven by a sixteen-channel MIDI controller. Multiply that by sixteen for the total number of channels I could have been using and you see why the originals were too twisted for, well, human consumption. Since that time I've been steadily abandoning computers and synthesizers such that only the Korg synth remains and it's plenty for my current needs.
All of that synth tech can be magical in the hands of a master composer / engineer such as Brian Eno but, regrettably, I am not he and my biggest bang comes from axe-whacking anyway.
That last is far more than you will find about me in the song. It's been engineered as much as my minimal capabilities go toward pulling the pearl of her voice out of a morass of external noise and a guitar far too shrill for, well, much of anything.
Cadillac Man and I have been trying to recover this song for some while, first by even finding it. Cadillac Man made the breakthrough and that led to more so this version may well be the best I'm capable of making of it. There is more yet to arrive from CM and this may not be the final but it's a giant step toward it. There's no point in uploading the base version of it as you seriously don't want to hear it. Ever. (larfs)
I knew all along what was in there so this is likely my best effort toward pulling her voice out of the swamp.
Don't be thinking the Mystery Lady only sang rock as she did "Candle in the Wind" and it's brought tears to everyone who ever heard it. She has a natural talent and never took a lesson in her life. We had been married for maybe even ten years before I even knew she had sung with a girl trio in the sixties for kind of a do-wop vibe. I would never have even heard about it except we went together to Denny Heglin's Music Store in Covington and she said, hey, get that microphone. I thought the idea was whacked as I knew what my voice sounded like so I knew the world really didn't need to hear it.
She said something like 'trust me' and we were married so what else was there to say and I got the mike.
Then I stood back for the wow part. Who knew!
We auditioned some people to sing with her but they were just not going to work out since she had gone on to a new world and catching up sounded like it would be impossible so she stayed the solo singer and it was grand.
I'm proud to present the Mystery Lady in "Rebel Hell" (free on the Ride the Dragon podcast and at full-resolution). This, quite likely, is the best I can make of an exceptionally poor recording.
"Eyes of the Raven" came about ten years later and by then Silas was playing solo and had shifted to using the computer only for recording and mixdown. At this stage, Silas was playing everything except the drums which were programmed with a drum machine. Don't even faintly compare this to the Mystery Lady as reviews at the time came back with 'the singing was brave' and that's not so bad, right? (larfs)
Note: "Eyes of the Raven" was uploaded days or a week or so ago and is not AIFF / CD quality but I've searched many times and I don't think such a master copy exists on my disks. Maybe I will write sometime the story of the computer disaster which left my songs and videos from the nineties forward looking like they just got hit by a Texas twister. The story is funny to recall but it wasn't precisely Tonight Show material ... but there's not much of anything which is Tonight Show material anymore (larfs).
As to why I was playing solo, it doesn't need to be covered here and the regulars know already anyway. The song was recorded well over ten years ago but it's not at all clear when I did it.
It's an obvious cover of "Rebel Yell" but maybe not so obvious when a woman sings it and delivers it hard. I'm immensely proud of her and my only regret is my originals were not far enough along to be workable with her on them. I was running a stack of seven or eight synthesizers, most as sound generator, and they were driven by a sixteen-channel MIDI controller. Multiply that by sixteen for the total number of channels I could have been using and you see why the originals were too twisted for, well, human consumption. Since that time I've been steadily abandoning computers and synthesizers such that only the Korg synth remains and it's plenty for my current needs.
All of that synth tech can be magical in the hands of a master composer / engineer such as Brian Eno but, regrettably, I am not he and my biggest bang comes from axe-whacking anyway.
That last is far more than you will find about me in the song. It's been engineered as much as my minimal capabilities go toward pulling the pearl of her voice out of a morass of external noise and a guitar far too shrill for, well, much of anything.
Cadillac Man and I have been trying to recover this song for some while, first by even finding it. Cadillac Man made the breakthrough and that led to more so this version may well be the best I'm capable of making of it. There is more yet to arrive from CM and this may not be the final but it's a giant step toward it. There's no point in uploading the base version of it as you seriously don't want to hear it. Ever. (larfs)
I knew all along what was in there so this is likely my best effort toward pulling her voice out of the swamp.
Don't be thinking the Mystery Lady only sang rock as she did "Candle in the Wind" and it's brought tears to everyone who ever heard it. She has a natural talent and never took a lesson in her life. We had been married for maybe even ten years before I even knew she had sung with a girl trio in the sixties for kind of a do-wop vibe. I would never have even heard about it except we went together to Denny Heglin's Music Store in Covington and she said, hey, get that microphone. I thought the idea was whacked as I knew what my voice sounded like so I knew the world really didn't need to hear it.
She said something like 'trust me' and we were married so what else was there to say and I got the mike.
Then I stood back for the wow part. Who knew!
We auditioned some people to sing with her but they were just not going to work out since she had gone on to a new world and catching up sounded like it would be impossible so she stayed the solo singer and it was grand.
I'm proud to present the Mystery Lady in "Rebel Hell" (free on the Ride the Dragon podcast and at full-resolution). This, quite likely, is the best I can make of an exceptionally poor recording.
"Eyes of the Raven" came about ten years later and by then Silas was playing solo and had shifted to using the computer only for recording and mixdown. At this stage, Silas was playing everything except the drums which were programmed with a drum machine. Don't even faintly compare this to the Mystery Lady as reviews at the time came back with 'the singing was brave' and that's not so bad, right? (larfs)
Note: "Eyes of the Raven" was uploaded days or a week or so ago and is not AIFF / CD quality but I've searched many times and I don't think such a master copy exists on my disks. Maybe I will write sometime the story of the computer disaster which left my songs and videos from the nineties forward looking like they just got hit by a Texas twister. The story is funny to recall but it wasn't precisely Tonight Show material ... but there's not much of anything which is Tonight Show material anymore (larfs).
As to why I was playing solo, it doesn't need to be covered here and the regulars know already anyway. The song was recorded well over ten years ago but it's not at all clear when I did it.
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