For the last year and a half I’ve had the pleasure of working with Gary Schoolcraft doing online collaborations. A couple of weeks ago my wife and I made a trip out to California and the stars aligned and allowed us to visit with Gary and his wife in San Jose, where we had the opportunity to finally sit down together in the same room. We did a couple of play-throughs of this song and rolled the camera. Here’s the result. (Note: If you hear a strange cracking sound at the beginning, that’s Gary’s dog enjoying a treat intended to keep her from wandering onto our set. That’s live dinner theater, folks.)

“The Midnight Special” referred to in this song was believed to be a train that ran past a prison in the south, shining its light into the cells of prisoners longing to be free. The song has been recorded by many artists over the years including Sam Collins in 1927 and Lead Belly in 1934. Harry Belafonte’s version in 1962 includes a young harmonica player by the name of Bob Dylan. Harry Dean Stanton sings the song in the movie “Cool Hand Luke” in 1967. And of course, Creedence’s Clearwater Revival’s 1969 version was used in the opening sequence of “Twilight Zone: The Movie” featuring Albert Brooks and Dan Aykroyd.

Thank you, Gary for being a fantastic host and for this fun in-person collaboration!

Ahoy, there! Looks like we have a fair wind for a sailing song. Join John Bacon, Gary Schoolcraft, Ben Robert Eastman, and me on a trip to the South Seas (and don’t forget the Dramamine). It’s always a tremendous pleasure for me to be able to make music with all of these gentlemen.

The song “Southern Cross” has an interesting provenance. From songfacts.com: “The song was written by Stephen Stills with help from Richard Curtis and Michael Curtis. In the CSN boxed set, Stills explained: ‘The Curtis brothers brought a wonderful song called Seven League Boots, but it drifted around too much. I rewrote a new set of words and added a different chorus, a story about a long boat trip I took after my divorce. It’s about using the power of the universe to heal your wounds. Once again, I was given somebody’s gem and cut and polished it.’” It was recorded by Crosby, Stills & Nash for the Daylight Again album and was released as the second single.

My online guitar buddy KC Newton recently invited me to join him on a project of his, and how could I say no to this great rocker from Gov’t Mule? KC did all of the guitars, vocals, and production work on this one and I added the organ track to round it out. Put on your headphones, crank up the volume, and find out all about that “Bad Little Doggie”!

“Poems, Prayers and Promises” is the title cut from John Denver’s 4th studio album in 1971. It’s a great song about remembering to remember the important things in life. I’ve been playing this one, myself, from sometime in the 1970’s, and when both Denver and I sang the line about “growing old,” we probably had different ideas back then about what that meant–maybe in our 40s? Anyhow, hope you enjoy this latest offering from the JD catalog.

My friend Steve Urbi asked me to join in on the brilliant Jackson Browne song “In the Shape of a Heart,” and how could I say no? Steve beautifully handled all the guitar and bass tracks, plus did the audio and visual production on this one. I played the synthesizer strings and Rhodes piano tracks and we were privileged to have Marsha McConchie MacMartin lend her golden voice to our efforts.

From the Songfacts website: “In this song about love and loss, Jackson Browne uses powerful images to convey the pain the singer feels as he finds his girlfriend’s heart-shaped pendant by the bedside and knows she is gone. “Speaking with Mojo, he described it as ‘Probably my most personal, and sometimes I think my best, song,’ adding, ‘It’s about whether we know what’s going on at a particular time, whether we recognize people for who they really are, whether we know what people are talking about when we’re in a relationship with them. It’s about missed opportunities.'”

“The Reach” is a gem off Dan Fogelberg’s amazing 1981 double album, The Innocent Age. It’s a great seafaring song that lets you feel the cold salt spray in your face—and maybe will help you appreciate that Maine lobster a little better next time you have it. Eggemoggin Reach separates Maine’s mainland from Deer Isle and the fishing village of Stonington, Maine. Fogelberg owned a home on Deer Isle and was a sailing enthusiast.

I was thrilled to have my guitar buddy John Bacon ask me to join him on this classic John Prine tune. Prine wrote this song for his father and included it on his debut album back in 1971. Hope you enjoy it.

It’s been a while since I posted an original, so here’s one. “Sweet Summer” was originally written as a metaphor for love gone wrong, but for all our friends in the northern hemisphere who have had enough of winter you might take the words a bit more literally. This song first appeared on my sister Nancy Tabb Marcantel’s “Lagniappe” album back in 1976. Hope you like it.

“Lay Me Down (Roll Me Out to Sea)” is my favorite “Barry Manilow” song. I put his name in quotes because since I first heard him perform it back in the ’70s I have wrongly credited him with its authorship. In fact, this great song was written by Larry Weiss and released by Weiss in 1974. It was then covered by several others, including Glen Campbell and Manilow. It was written for piano and every recording I’ve heard of it has been piano-driven (except Campbell’s), so I tried to adapt it for guitar as best I could to suit my own playing style and abilities.

A few weeks back I watched the Willie Nelson 90th birthday special and there was a great moment when Rosanne Cash and Kris Kristofferson performed a duet of this beautiful Kristofferson song. “Loving Her Was Easier (Than Anything I’ll Ever Do Again)” has been covered by plenty of people, but I went back to one of Kris’s earliest performances of it to try to perform it the way he first envisioned it. Hope you like it.