Album Notes

MAKING A TRACY HUFFMAN RECORD

“HE HAD A BAD BACK!”, then he walked out of the room. This was Tracy Huffman’s father responding to a young Tracy saying, “Well, Hank Williams was on drugs!” Tracy wasn’t on drugs but most of the groups he listened to growing up were.

Mike Stinson’s father insists that Hank Jr. is much better that Hank Sr. even though Mike’s father is more from the Hank Sr. generation and is far from the Country Outlaw period. I gained respect for Mike’s dad after hearing that story, who else has enough balls to say something so crazy? Then again he was probably just pushing Mike’s buttons.

Tracy pointed out that we were all the babies in our families and I agreed pointing out that we were the ones getting tied up and left to escape playing “Houdini” or the ones having to cough up a buck for no reason except the older brother wanted to buy a Dr Pepper and some Pork Rinds. Does anybody remember playing 52 Card Pick-Up?

In between these bits of conversation is when we cut the record. It was always Tracy, Mike and I laughing at something. Tracy’s words can be funny and heartbreaking at the same time, which to me is what life is. We cut the album over 4 separate 2-hour sessions. It was more important for us to have the conversation than to think about the recording.

Glen Sherba and Colleen Kennedy came by and played on the record. Tracy is a Missouri boy and even though he has those hot Chuck Berry licks in his pocket he ended up just laying back and letting Glen take all the hot licks. And Glen did. Colleen blew her riffs on the harmonica.

There’ no layered guitars, Tracy is in the left speaker Glen is in the right. At one point during “The Crow” I quit playing notes and picked up a beer can and ran it across the bass strings to make barnyard noises. Tracy didn’t flinch.

Tracy wanted to show us this song, “It’s Alright”. I had a tamborine laying on the floor and as Tracy was showing us the song, Mike stepped on the tamborine and clapped his hands. Tracy was singing into one of the drum kits microphones. That ended up being the recording on the record. That was the first time Mike and I ever heard the song.

There’s not much math on this record. I’m pretty good with math but when people start talking about numbers when playing music it makes me go limp. “4, 5, 1, Do, Rey, Me, Fa, So, La, Ti, etc…” this is a countdown to going soft.

Kip Boardman added some class to this whole mess by singing and playing beautiful piano.

“Sumptum like that”, that was Tracy’s statement after every take. The band didn’t know the songs and Tracy didn’t want to play them more than twice or so. So that was it. Here it is, “Ever Notice A Crow” the new album by Tracy Huffman.


-Charlie McGovern
North Hollywood, June 2006