The Making of a First Album

Me in the studio (Photo by Camryn Shaffer of Living Sound Delusions Studios)

As a musician, I've always known what a process it must be to not only create your own music, but to then have it recorded for the world to hear. As I have recently embarked on this journey of recording my first album, especially while paying for it out of pocket, I have gained so much respect for musicians who do studio work, audio engineers, producers, and up-and-coming musicians who have taken this huge step in getting their own music out there. It takes a lot of passion, love, money (lol) and support to get started on and follow through with recording an album for the first time. This process made me grateful for the musicians I have met in my life. I knew I wanted to have a handful of musicians whose work I loved and who I really looked up to be a part of this project. So far, I have had three such musicians play. While there are two more who will be recording their parts, I'm so happy with what I've heard thus far. It has made the late drives home from Berea well worth it to have such talented folks join me on some of these songs that mean so much to me.

Don Rogers joined to play some mandolin on a handful of songs, and Sophie Delaney recorded some vocal harmonies as well (pictured below).

Don Rogers joined with Mandolin

Sophie Delaney about to record some harmony vocals

As I selected each song for the album and listened through them, typed out the lyrics, wrote arrangements, and at this point, listened to them each a million times, I was reminded what each of these songs meant to me when I wrote them. From "Miss Amphetamine", which is a song that helped me deal with difficult emotions relating to the addiction of a family member who I dearly loved; to the title track, "Creekbank", a healing heartbreak song I literally wrote when, as the opening lyrics say, "I wore my six inch heels and went down to the creekbank. Stuck my feet in the water, just to wash the pain away..."; and to other songs like "Wild and Wonderful", an environmental song personifying place as someone the singer loves. Each of these songs, along with the others, are pieces of me, my story, and of the things I have seen and felt in my life. I am so glad I can finally share some of them with everyone in this way. While there is still a long way to go in getting this album completed, I know that the outcome is going to be one that I love. I hope that all of y'all love it just as much as I do!

This blog post is just a little update on how things are going, so I also wanted to share a cute photo of a friend that I picked up as a direct result of this album. Upon arriving for Sam Gleaves to record some banjo for the album, my boyfriend and I were met with a furry, friendly little kitten who, at the time, was being called "Boone". My boyfriend held him for a while and decided that we needed to bring him home with us, as Camryn was looking to rehome him. We did just that. We had to rename him due to my dog being named "Boone", and he now goes by "Mr. Mackey" (though I always just call him little man). He really loved the banjo and Sam as he played, and we got a few photos of him.

Mr. Mackey was putting the "claw" in clawhammer style

Well, that's all for now, folks!

Ps: Mr. Mackey loves his new home and his new friends, as seen in the following photos (believe it or not, there are three cats in the 3rd photo)