Gallop to Georgia Release! Finally!

The “Gallop to Georgia” project is finally getting a proper release. The last few days has seen us go to media and start getting the word out. Now how long has it been? Seems like I started working on learning the N&S tunes maybe 5 or so years ago. Too long ago now to remember the date, but I do know it was a very rewarding few days spent with the inimitable Norman and Nancy Blake. But there was a lot of stuff to do on my end before I even got to the point of rehearsing with Norman.

I’ve had this project in my mind for quite some time, since at least my years working with John Hartford. I remember it back that far. Pre-2000. I guess that’s 20 years. There were countless hours of listening to N&S and deciding which tunes to include. After that was done a lot of time was spent deciding which versions of the tunes to do, how the melodies actually probably went. It seemed that most of the tunes had at least 2-3 variations in the melody to choose from. I’m not talking about improvisations on the melody so much as I am the number of beats in a measure. I realized pretty quick that I was going to just have to make decisions on what to do and stop being so much of a historian about it. Once I got all that figured out then I had to write down the versions the way they made the most sense to me, which wasn’t necessarily the way I ended up playing them on the project.

There was a lot more to reaching a place where I felt comfortable and capable of playing the tunes. I had already made up my mind I was going to represent the tunes as much like WiIlie Narmour played them as I could but that soon proved to be more about my level of ignorance regarding what I was undertaking than a stylistic choice. I have written at some length about this in the liner notes on the recording, so I won’t repeat myself here. Just know that my lack of experience with the style began to rear its head very quickly. It has become only recently that I have found myself in a place of understanding enough to improvise a bit on the tunes and feel somewhat comfortable, to feel like I ‘played’ the melody.

Once I got everything sort of working I sent Norman a tape of the tunes to see if he would be interested once he heard them. I didn’t hear from him for a while and naturally I thought the worst. So to calm myself I called him and he said that he thought it would be okay and wanted to know if I was dead set on the same rhythm and chord structure as on the originals and I said, “No sir. I’d like for you to play whatever you hear fits with the tunes because I’m hearing more in there than N&S are playing”. There were some obvious chord changes that could be made and I just figured Norman being Norman, he didn’t need me to tell him what to play. I was just happy to have him on the project.

I figured I’d go down to Norman and Nancy’s neighborhood to do the recording to save them the drive to Nashville. Norman had been using David Hammonds at Cook Sound in Fort Payne, AL (owned by Jeff Cook of Alabama) to do his last few records. He assured me that David was a good man to help us so I made contact and we got dates and everything set up. The next thing was to rehearse with Norman. I showed up two days before the project was to begin and we hammered through the tunes, and I do mean hammered. It took a bit for us to get in a groove of some kind, to work out the chords, to figure out what instruments to use, etc. I think I started out playing my Gil #536 and Norman had some sort of high-powered Martin model that I’d never even heard of but it was just too much. I recall the sound just not being comfortable, just too in your face. I mean, we weren’t playing “Rawhide”. I put the Gil back in the case and pulled out my Duff with the dead strings and played around on it a bit. Norman listened to the tone of the Duff and said to hold that thought, he had an idea. He came back with an old case and pulled out a Gibson Century model, I forget the entire model name/number. No matter. What counts is that when we played the two together they blended really well and that bit was taken care of.

I remember being really nervous to be playing with Norman. But I think there was so many little bumps to iron out that there was no time to dwell on that. No time to sweat about playing with this musical legend. There was work needed doing. I asked Norman at one point if he wanted to swap out playing leads on the tunes and he said every time, “I figure I’ve played a plenty of leads during my career. I’ll just sit here and play these here guitar chords”. Funny. The first evening was a bit grueling. I felt like I was dragging an anvil behind me on a lot of it. Norman was working his way through the chord changes and crooked meters and I started to realize that I was trying to lead too much instead of listening and taking part in the conversation. Lighten up, Compton.

At one point we had been playing the same tune over and over and not quite getting it done. The meter was crooked and chord changes odd. Neither me nor Norman could make sense out of it at that point in the day. We must’ve been torturing poor Nancy downstairs because she started hollering up the stairs, “That ain’t gonna cut it, boys”. At one point she ran up the stairs and walked over to Norman and said, “Give me that guitar!” and took it out of his hands and then looked at me and said, “Now, play it again!” She played the chords through and then gave Norman back his guitar and told him that James Bryan would fuss at him if he heard him play that tune like that, and off downstairs she went. The next time through we blew it again and the next time too, but this time Nancy busted out laughing downstairs and so did the boys upstairs. I asked her how it was all sounding and she was quiet for a minute and then said, “Well, it’s been a really long day. Ya’ll will probably get it better tomorrow”. More laughing all around. Yes ma’am. I sure hope so.

The next day went better and I think at the end of the afternoon we felt like we could make a decent recording. Norman told me at that point that he had never listened to Narmour & Smith that much because there were other fiddle bands that he liked better and he didn’t know for sure whether he would be able to pull it off or not but seems like it was going to be okay. I’ll say that thought never went through my mind. I went to bed that day feeling a lot more capable to get this done.

The morning came and we rode down to the studio in Norman’s car. David Hammonds is a very easy going fellow and knows his job well. He had everything set up, everything being one mandolin mic, one guitar mic (or two?), one room mic in the middle. Norman and I sat about 6-8 feet apart as best as I remember. Then we just started going down the list and playing the tunes over and over until we got good versions of the tunes. No overdubbing. Seems like it took a day and a half in the studio to get the 16 tunes and we were done. On the way home the second day it was a pleasant day out and Norman was feeling nostalgic so he took the long way back and drove down through his old stomping grounds where he grew up. He showed me where the old roads were, were the cotton gin was, where he and a bunch of the other boys used to cut up and mess around down by the railroad tracks, where the old stores were, etc. It was a very nice bit of reminiscing and I felt honored that Norman felt comfortable enough to share his memories.

I’m very glad that we’ve come to the point this recording can be released properly. It’s taken a long time to get it going but I’m happy that it’s finally getting some energy. As for the tunes, well, they’re part of who I am and where I come from. I think I could do some of them a little more justice today, but I’m satisfied with the way this turned out. Sometimes I get tired of chasing the mob and it’s just a lot of fun to sit down and play some simple old tunes at a slow pace and while away the hours. I don’t guess I’ll ever get tired of that.

I’m including a link to the press release. Go check us out if you’re a mind to! Here’s the link…

https://mailchi.mp/e4cada796274/mike-compton-norman-blake-gallop-to-georgia

Thanks. Life is good. MC