The Bass Player

I've been gone for a week - time to update the blog.

I think that one of the most important musicians for a project like this is the bass player. In this case, it is my good friend Steve Gilligan. He really set the tone for each song through his musical imagination. He is a very strong player with a resume that includes The Stompers and City of Roses.

Steve and I met about 10 years ago at an open mic and later he did some work on my CDs "City Girl" and "Gemini Rising".

Not only he is a great bass player, but an enthusiastic one. He has great musicality in his being and he not only furnishes notes, but songwriting advice as well.

For "Church People", a song about the small church that nourished my mother through her Parkinson's disease and provided my dad solace when she died, Steve came in with a sense of the song structure. He pointed out that the chorus between the first two stanzas interrupted the flows of the story line, and he was right - so we removed it from there and just added it as an extra tag at the end.

He was particularly enthusiastic about "Short Endings to Long Goodbyes" a song that chronicles two young lovers who part at the airport. Calling it a universal song that everyone can relate to especially during a war (one lover is a soldier) he insisted on reasserting the hook of the chorus in the tag (I had shortened it) because it was so effective. He likened it to "Bridge Over Troubled Water" in how it swells with emotion.

So, of course, we did it!

I especially like the little 60's move he puts into the intro of "Long and Lonely". It adds a definite character to the piece that will make the intro stand out.

Steve is also very supportive of my penchant for irregularity. I often let the melody follow the words and am not consistent from verse to verse. This would drive most bass players crazy, but he just smiles at me impishly and says he likes it. It makes my writing unique.

I am so pleased that Steve is along for this ride, and seeing how well he and Jeff work together was gratifying. How can I go wrong with these two?