This is Brad Laird. He recorded our first CD, which we called "A Monkey Who Can Dance." Brad has played in bluegrass bands in North Georgia since about when people whittled the first mandolin out of a tree and has taught students how to play everything with frets and a lot of instruments without frets for years. I've taken banjo lessons from Brad and Mike has taken mandolin lessons from him. For awhile, some of us were taking "how to be a band" lessons from him.
Up to that point, we were each isolated instrument-players. He taught us how to get along as a group, making each other sound better than a bunch of individuals by blending sounds; the value of backing off, how to work out harmonies, adding drama by bringing instruments in and out of an arrangement...all kinds of valuable stuff it has taken us a long time to put into effect. We're still working on his great lessons!
After we'd been trying to make songs for awhile, we decided to make a recording as a "snapshot" of what we could do at that point. Brad brought his recording gear to my basement, we laid in a tub of beer, and we played and sang into a few microphones. I think all the songs were done on the first take except one and there was no multi-track fancy shmancy stuff going on. We end up with "Monkey," named after our most popular song, which included a few Jeff Dore original songs and some traditional standbys.
We were amazed that people actually bought some and asked us to record another one. It took years, but we finally did, and that's the CD we are working on now. Having figured out how to upload pictures, my next challenge is to figure out how to add a link to music. If I can do that, we'll give you a sample or two from our upcoming CD. Hey, by then we might even have a name for it. And I'll try to give you some idea of what it's like to create a CD from scratch. It's been really fun and really challenging.