Civil Wars, Honky-Tonk's and Grand-Slams ....

In telling the story I'm about to tell I guess I should start this post on Christmas Day 2011.
That day I received a copy of 'Nashville Skyline' by Bob Dylan on Vinyl as a present from Sarah (Howells) who sings with me.

It was apt that she chose that one for it was one of the few albums of his I didn't have and little did I know at the time but it's title would come to shape my next couple of months...

A few weeks earlier I'd been watching Jools Holland and had enjoyed the following performance by a band I hadn't heard of namely 'The Civil Wars' - this is them performing the title track from their debut album 'Barton Hollow'

I'd really enjoyed the performance but hadn't followed it up with any research into who they were or where they were from. Then one day whilst on Twitter a friend of mine posted a video of them performing another of their songs and having watched that I decided to purchase their album.

It quickly became the flavour of the month on my iPod and throughout the Christmas period I was constantly listening to it.

Therefore when it came to the time to start thinking of people who I'd like to work with on the new album I thought I'd see where and with whom they'd made 'Barton Hollow'.
It turned out the man they made it with was a Mr Charlie Peacock based out in Nashville, Tennessee. I read his blog and found it refreshing the way he spoke about capturing the magic within a performance of a song. I thoroughly recommend you read it (if you're into that kind of thing) -

http://recordproducer.typepad.com/record-producer/2010/01/performance-product...

Feeling I had nothing to lose I decided to email him and sent him links to a few of my songs, not really expecting anything back....then something really unexpected happenned - A reply!

Following on from that initial email exchange we said we'd reconvene our conversation after the Grammys as unbeknown to me - Charlie and the Civil Wars were up for two this year. Sufficed to say - they won them both! http://www.grammy.com/news/and-the-grammy-went-to-the-civil-wars

Since then I've seen their name plastered almost everywhere here in London - they've cropped up on the Tube / in the papers / on the BBC Breakfast sofa even...!!

I was even fortunate enough to catch them perform a sold-out in-store gig at Rough Trade East last week. It was great to see something which clearly has grown organically without any forced-image led PR campaign - they are just really good live and sing/write great tunes! Simple!

So where does that leave me? 

Well I'm off this weekend to Nashville - home of Country music and the Honky-Tonk Bar.

I will be there for two weeks working with Mr Charlie Peacock and various other talented musicians on new material. Sarah Howells is also coming for a week, so I'll have another Welshie with me for the journey.

I'll be blogging about my experiences whilst I'm out there and sharing with you all that I get up-to.

Finally I couldn't leave you without wishing the Welsh Rugby Team the best of luck on Saturday afternoon in their pursuit of a third Grand-Slam in 8 years! What an achievement that would be..!!

I wonder if they play rugby in Nashville.....