KILLING THE BLUES
Rowland Salley
killing_the_blues-a.jpeg |
Steve was the first to record Roly Salley's song soon after the songwriter debuted it in Woodstock, NY, and put it on his Whole World Round album on Kicking Mule record label in 1983. This email came in one recent summer day more than thirty years later, much to Steve's surprise as he read on....
Hi Steve,
I guess you could say it has been awhile with a capital A. I've been in California and Canada for many years...always playing with my band and doing other little musical things here and there. It fell to me finally this year to clean out a storage space that I've been holding for about twenty years and i came out of that with a trunk (or two) full of cassette tapes that are more or less the musical track to my "story". So i'm going through them while trekking around on tour this summer...converting them to digital files...and I came across a tape of yours that must have been a record...with my song "Killing the Blues" on it. The quality of the music and singing on that tape blew me away! What a great bluegrass combo!! For me, the rhythm has to be serious to begin with and the people playing o your record were ace time-keepers. On top of that...the playing and harmony singing is of a quality that might possibly restore a fella's faith! And one other thing...in Killing the Blues...you faithfully kept that extra bar in before it goes to the chorus line. That is something that you and Shawn Colvin alone pay homage to...and in my opinion...is key to the song. Thank you for that! And finally, I wish after all these years...the very best. I hope to run across you out there someplace one of these days. Regards from Roly
www.rolandsalley.com
I guess you could say it has been awhile with a capital A. I've been in California and Canada for many years...always playing with my band and doing other little musical things here and there. It fell to me finally this year to clean out a storage space that I've been holding for about twenty years and i came out of that with a trunk (or two) full of cassette tapes that are more or less the musical track to my "story". So i'm going through them while trekking around on tour this summer...converting them to digital files...and I came across a tape of yours that must have been a record...with my song "Killing the Blues" on it. The quality of the music and singing on that tape blew me away! What a great bluegrass combo!! For me, the rhythm has to be serious to begin with and the people playing o your record were ace time-keepers. On top of that...the playing and harmony singing is of a quality that might possibly restore a fella's faith! And one other thing...in Killing the Blues...you faithfully kept that extra bar in before it goes to the chorus line. That is something that you and Shawn Colvin alone pay homage to...and in my opinion...is key to the song. Thank you for that! And finally, I wish after all these years...the very best. I hope to run across you out there someplace one of these days. Regards from Roly
www.rolandsalley.com