"Ballad of the Bar Bazaar," studio draft, from January 2003,
was written by Russ Hopkins on guitar; and piano played by me. I hope you can hear old Fort Collins in this. For the rest of you, the sign said you can
find anything you wanted at the Bazaar. So
that attracted characters far and wide.
Some of them badly needed a hug, or someone to hold their hand, and
their tragedies were played out before the rest of the patrons. That's the take away on the piano at
least. You'll get the drift. Thank you Russ Hopkins, and who is the owner
of Kiva Recording in Fort Collins, Colorado for allowing me to post this tune. He's at myspace.com/russellhopkins.
A.J.'s Blog
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Epic "Ballad of the Bar Bazaar"
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long strange trip #100
As you can see, there's no more synth solo. What is up instead is a rustic piano piece. Rustic, as opposed to Classical perhaps. But in any case, without the drums any longer, I can change the time sig 6-7 times. I was going to apologize for it, but then well, damn, looking around there's not even a country trio left either. Gas prices killed that little idea. Gas prices are changing live music in the wide open spaces and it is a long way between cities. Now the internet can only gain importance from these changes. Hope that we can keep up and stay in touch with neighbors as well. So I hope you like the newest upload. If you are nearby, then please make friends!
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long strange trip: #99.
So what's left is a synth solo played during a studio take. It basically shows off an improvised lead, a skill which comes from early experience with woodwind instruments. But no matter instead, I've been pulling together all the stride blues music that Ray Charles played with country western songwriters and musicians like Willie Nelson, Waylan, and Hank Williams. This is prime time to carry on that style. Years ago now, not long after he died, I played a Ray Charles Showcase, with a legendary vocalist named Johnny Dragon. The crowd was hugely receptive, and since that time the songlist has grown into about 145 tunes. Most of the time, I use a Yamaha CP-30, a tube based preamplier, and a MotionSound amplifier. So my footprint is small. The originating stack of FAKE books is measured in terms of weight now and not just height any longer. I'm truly interested in making the genre better known. Sometimes they've called it "outlaw" or "red dirt" or "big rig" country western, but it has that stride blues as a partner. If you happen to want to sing these kinds of songs, we'd really like to hear from you. Thanks for reading this...honestly Jim