Album Notes

Three Man Stone is an unlikely quartet, really. It features Stephen Dorsky, a seasoned guitar player and devout Deadhead; Jason Bailey, currently a full-time member of Birmingham's Tonal Vision, and clearly one of the area's best mandolinists; and Bob Barker and Brent Stauffer, long-time members of local favorite, Partial to Mabel, on guitar and upright bass. Local drummer extraordinare, Colin Soniat, also lent his talents to all but one of the tracks. To cover how all the various influences, liquor and jam sessions brought these five together on one project would require a page or two. Suffice to say that between all the guys who played and engineered the CD, they have have logged in enough stage and song-writing time to make any musician proud.

Although the members only play live about once a month, in a short time they recorded an 11-song CD that has received pleasant reviews from local notables and talent folk. Playing as a four-piece acoustic band in venues generally reserved for more aggressive outfits with drummers intact, Three Man Stone has seen nice early success including being selected for local festivals with impressive exposure.

You can hear plenty of influences in Three Man Stone's CD "Weathered": John Prine, the Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, J.J. Cale, The Band and others. But the 11 original songs show enough diversity and originality to offer any new listener something they've never heard "quite that way." The engineering and production was done with minimalism in mind. There are very few multiple tracks. Vocals are well-mixed but with a natural sound. The result is what an album should be: a clean, articulate version of what you'd get in a small theater . . . . assuming everthing went just right . . . . Enjoy!