More Summer 2014 - Rolling Stone premiers an unreleased home recording of Woody Guthrie's "My Name Is New York." I restored and remastered this demo recording as part of the 3 CD enhanced audio book My Name Is New York. Produced by the Magic Shop's Steve Rosenthal with Michael Kleff and Nora Guthrie, the first two CDs take you on an audio tour through Woody's NYC through interviews with his friends and family including Pete Seeger, Ramblin' Jack Elliot, and Nora and Arlo Guthrie. The third bonus CD debuts unreleased demo recordings and new recordings made from Woody's lyrics. Here's more from the Wall Street Journal and LA Times.

Summer 2014 - I'll be honest. Each day the temperature outside fails to reach 90 degrees, I am grateful we're one day closer to fall. Summer is my favorite time to hole up in the (air conditioned) studio and work. And that's what I've been doing: restoring and remastering from cassette a blistering recording from the 1990s of Senegalese singer Aby Ngana Diop, Liital, due this September on the aptly named Awesome Tapes From Africa label. I mastered the debut album for End of Love, mixed by Ted Young and featuring members of Wilco and Big Star. And a perfect summer jam of an EP (as well as forthcoming full length album), also recorded and mixed by Ted Young, Ellen Sundberg's Headlights.

Watch and listen for bluegrass singer Jen Larson's upcoming EP, featuring some of the best pickers in the NYC area, produced by the super talented guitarist, singer and  music teacher Michael Daves, and mastered by me with Jen and Michael in attendance. We had such a good time mastering, I immediately signed up for their excellent Bluegrass Harmony Singing class and had a blast singing Stanley Brothers and Louvin Brothers tunes all through June and early July.

I'm making a playlist of all Hasil Adkins, Hazel Dickens and Little Jimmy Dickens, because why not?

In my bluegrass harmony singing class this week (taught by Michael Daves and Jen Larson, a pair whose expertise and ease with the music inspires and astounds me, and who joined me in the studio recently to master Jen's knockout of an EP), we learned the Hazel and Alice version of the Bill Monroe song "The One I Love Is Gone." As I was leaving the studio to go to class, I hurriedly put the song on my iPhone so I could learn it en route. I listened to it on repeat the entire train ride to Brooklyn. I could not tear my ears away. As Jen said in class, it's the "torchiest" of bluegrass duets, and the Hazel and Alice version is knife sharp. Ordinarily, I am a modest singer, and I like to sing modest songs, nothing showy, not too much love, not too much heartbreak. But I tell you, I have been belting this song at home.

Now I'm on a mission to find out how many of Hazel and Alice's recordings are still in print, and if they are out of print.... maybe someone needs to track them down, send them to me, and we can get them back into this world.

Incidentally, my introduction to Little Jimmy Dickens came via my 93 year old grandfather, born and raised in West Virginia, who told me his mom used to tell him to "take an old cold tater and wait." Had to google that one, but it led me right to Jimmy. I doubt grandpa listened to much Hasil Adkins, but who knows? They were fellow West Virginians.