Album Notes

Jon Robert Quinn's second release "Solo-Fisticated" bursts with a new level of maturity and musicianship. The first thing that hits you is a fat, warm guitar tone in an awesome jazz groove called "Rhythm of the City", and the overall sound is excellent.

This lucidity reveals a gifted and consistent songwriter, and sublimely talented guitarist, strengths that allow Jon Robert Quinn to express himself ever so eloguently, evoking emotions on a universal level. "Confused," is a techno-like, polyrhythmic scorcher on which he grows a stratospheric guitar solo out of a few well-placed phrases.

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Here's a breakdown of each song from the mind of Jon Robert Quinn.

RHYTHM OF THE CITY - Rhythm Of The City has a special place in the hearts of my fans because wherever I go to play and I start this song, the audience cheers. They love this song. I remember the first time I played this song live, I was playing at a festival. A gentleman walked up to me and introduced himself as Orlando. Orlando and I became great friends. He was the backbone of the Solo-Fisticated tour in 2004. When this song was written, I loved how it turned out. I knew it would do well, but needed a good name for it. I knew where I wanted to go with the name of the song but couldn't land anything that would stick. I called my mother, played the song over the phone for her and in less than 10 seconds, she came back with Rhythm of the City. I loved it. I knew we had a great song that would last for years with the audience.

ALONE - This is good song. I don't remember the direction of the song or why we named it Alone. I wasn't alone when I wrote it and its not a sad song. It's just a great song with a good melody.

SPEED FREAK - This is a song that has been with me for a long long time. Originally written in 1997, about a year after picked up the guitar for the first time, I called it Speed Freak, because at the time, it was the hardest song for me to play. I thought it was soooo fast and complex. Now, its just a fun song to play. After years of playing the song and never releasing it, I figured it would be a great song for the CD.

LIGHT OF NIGHT - Light of Night was a song that was supposed to be a lot more complex than it turned out to be. It was a song that shouldve had more structure. After sitting there for hours playing with the song and not coming up with anything, I recorded it as it was. I really wasn't sure about the song but put it on the CD anyway. After introducing the song to a live audience, I knew it was perfect. They loved it. To this day, this song has ended up one of my best selling songs.

CONFUSED - When writing this song, I was having trouble looking for the right notes in bridge. I was reading an article of Guitar World Magazine and it talked about some Yngwie Malmsteen licks. I looked up the sheet music and found exactly what I was looking for. I wanted a good dancable song, but with a some flashy licks, but also a middle-eastern sound.

A BEAUTIFUL DAY - What is a beautiful day? Everyday is a beautiful day. Whether you're stressed, depressed, sad, or happy. The day you wake up is a beautiful day. Live everyday like its your last.

LIFE - When I was writing this CD, I wanted a song that would throw off the audience. A song written and performed without a guitar. When my manager at the time heard this song, he called me and said what the hell are you thinking? A song without guitar? You're a guitar player. I released it anyway. LOL.

DRAMATIZED - This song was so hard to record at the time. There were so many takes recording this song. The DEE-DOO part requires me to slide up about 10 frets in less than a second and I kept either sliding too far or not far enough. So we had to stop and start over again about 20 times. We finally got it.

THE END - The End was intended to be the last song on the CD. It was actually written and recorded early on in the project, but it sounded dark, so I thought the name The End would suit it well. Being called The End, it would have to be at the end of the CD. The first run of CDs had this song as the last song. Shorty after recieving the first run of duplication and even before sending the CD to the distributors, I wrote Canyon Moon. It was the second of CD that Canyon Moon was released. The back of the CD was redesigned with different artwork and the cover of the CD says Second Edition in the top corner.

CANYON MOON - This song sounds more like it would've been on the One Long Road CD, but after running the first batch of CDs, we decided to add this song to the CD. The distributors have Second Edition available for sale. The first of CDs sold early on and I have no idea how many were made and sold, or even how many are left. I also did a run of CDs where the Disc Face was blank and I autographed each CD. Not sure how many of those we did either.

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History behind the artwork.

One day we were up at Mount Diablo in Contra Costa County for a day out. I was the passenger and I saw the coolest thing. The cliff line was right atop of the clouds. It looked like I could've walked off of the cliff right onto the clouds and kept going. It was awesome. We grabbed a camera and my guitar of the trunk and took a quick picture. When we got home, I looked at the picture and with a little photoshop we had an album cover. It was intended to be a promo photo, not an album, but hey whatever works. The CD Cover Shown is of the first batch run of CDs. Though the CD available online is of the Second Edition, they still use the First Edition Image.