The sound of this album is a solid hybrid of country and rock influences. We have Acoustic Guitar, Mandolin, National Steel (sometimes known as a Dobro), and Piano. On the other side of the spectrum we have Drums, Electric Bass, and Electric Guitars.

7 MP3 Songs in this album (36:38) !
Related styles: COUNTRY: Alt-Country, ROCK: Adult Alternative Pop/Rock

People who are interested in Neil Young The Jayhawks Cowboy Junkies should consider this download.


Details:
The Arthur Livingston story is an interesting one. And in the case that it is only interesting to those who lived it, the reader of this deserves an explanationâ¦
In the beginning, two songwriters (Gary Foshee, Tom Peet Fredericksen) decided it would be fun to start a group based around the music we were writing at the timeâ¦ah, the time was circa 1992, I believe. We had a guy with a Mandolin and a sweet Civil-war-era beard (David Heuer), and an incredible drummer, just off the boat from Denmark (Lasse Plum Bertelsen, hereafter known as âLPâ). We practiced in Tom Peetâs garage, and eventually moved our rehearsals to an infamous local bar, and began playing once a week--for free beer, that is. Regardless of what that amounted to, it was quite productive, even if there was an extended period between songs trying to figure out what we were going to play next. We had a lot of original material, and a few covers, and we were not too proud to repeat a song, in the event that weâd gone through our repertoire-even with 90 minutes remaining on the clock. We soon brought in more instruments-Dave is also a fantastic electric guitarist-and I started bringing my Bass Guitar around, even though I do not enjoy singing and playing bass, but I did it anyway. In the spring of 1994, my dear friend Steve Todd loaned me the use of a warehouse, where we set up and recorded what would be our first album. We had Mark Casselman and Paul Bryant bring up a bunch of recording gear, and spent the whole weekend tracking songs live, out in this big cavernous space. At one point we needed another place to isolate Daveâs guitar amp, so we rolled up the door in the back, and I drove my â69 VW bus inside, put on the e-brake, and we placed the amp in the van, ran cables up through an opening designated as an ice box drain (German engineering!) and brought more volume to that interior than was ever produced by the stereo system! And we have pictures to prove itâ¦
We had also invited ace guitarist Michael Dougherty to this recording session, and a guest appearance turned a 4-piece group into a 5 piece-we now had two guitarists! The story takes a sad turn here. The master tapes were being mixed in a studio about two blocks from East Beach in Santa Barbara, when the El Nino storm came through that winter and flooded the studio, ruining the tapes in the process. Bye Bye Album, Bye Bye. This was a terrible setback, and for the next two and a half years the band did not play together at all. When we did, it was the summer of 1997, and I was prepared to make another go of it. We recruited a wonderful singer whom Iâd met a few years earlier, Amy Mc Cracken, and we rehearsed for about 6 weeks before we went to Earle Mankeyâs Studio in Thousand Oaks, CA, and made the CD âIn My Sleepâ, under the group name Arthur Livingston. Earle Mankey is a great engineer and a very cool cat to work with, and he tolerated our somewhat unconventional approach to recording this music. We tracked the vocals, acoustic instruments, and drums live (LP and drums in another room) and we overdubbed Piano, Bass, and Electric Guitars afterward. The mixes were done over the next couple months, then it took another year to find the dough to have CDâs made. That year was not long, though; compared to the 10 years it took me to begin selling these CDâs !!! Those who purchase our CD love to comment on the packagingââItâs So 90âsâ!! Heavy, coaster-grade plastic jewel box cases, very unlike the slender, eco-friendly CD packaging of the 21st Century. Actually, a real coaster just might blush. Think of it as a vintage item, not quite as vintage as a vinyl LP with the plastic still on, but jeez, weâre not that old! As for the decade that passed? Well, we were not always a full time band, you see. We were happiest when we were in a garage rehearsing and playing songs (and drinking beer), but the business of going out and promoting our music was not our strong point, but the making of this recording was well worth the price of admission. And although it is not perfect, I believe it is pretty damn good considering we had not played together in almost 3 years, and gave ourselves 6 weeks to prepare for that recording. But what else is there to do in a small townâ¦? So, the group still plays, but under the name â Gary Foshee Bandâ, and we still record with Earle Mankey in Thousand Oaks, CA. We released the âColor Rose EPâ in 2008, and Earle is in the process of mixing seven other songs from that same session-but I promise not to wait so long to put them outâ¦GF