Yesterday was quite a momentous day of music for me and my new “Slide Guitar Summit” project, and I had two more true slide guitar “greats” play with me. This time it was Cindy Cashdollar and Sonny Landreth, who played with me on 2 tracks of my Toolin’ Around Woodstock album a few years back. We had a great time then, and we had a great time now and I wrote a specific song for Sonny to play on for this album, as well as conjuring up 2 classics for Cindy to play on with me.

This weekend I continue to cut tracks as well as doing overdubs for my new album project, and I feel totally consumed by equipment worries and preparations! It never fails to amaze me at just how much I love to “over-bring” too much stuff to these sessions, and there is, I suppose a sense in me that I don’t want to miss any creative opportunity that may arise.

As I ready myself, and keep preparing for my new SLIDE GUITAR SUMMIT album project, it seems like every song has the “lap steel vs. upright slide question” at hand. Of course, these are two distinctly different ways of playing slide guitar, and everyone seems to have their preferences for sure, but I find that either approach can work for me at any given time.

Last night was a very powerful and poignant night for many people in the Newtown/Sandy Hook area of Connecticut, where my daughter Lexie and I put on a show, along with many other musicians to raise money and most of all try to raise spirits for the people and community there who were hit so hard by the tragedy. It was as can be expected of these kinds of things, rather chaotic, and things “ran over” and late, people played too long, and all the other things that could occur, did!

I can recall the other day, thinking about how much I seemed to know at an early age, especially when it came to the guitar-related subjects and styles I was so adept at. This was especially true in regards to the 3 or 4 books I was writing from the ages of about 20 to 22. I realized that this was because to know more about my subject, I was actually delving deeper into the subject without even truly realizing it! As years have gone on now, I have become even more aware of how this process is always “helped along” by teaching.

Just did a quick, yet informative interview on a National Public Radio station, and it was an incredible amount of fun. Of course, it takes all the right things to come together to have a “good” radio appearance, and it’s always funny when you realize that even though they may’ve interviewed you for close to an hour, it will really only end up being a 4-minute piece, or something like that!

The very concept of making a living as a musician may seem like an impossibility to many, and though the task is daunting, it’s certainly not hopeless. I can still remember the first time I got paid for doing anything musically, and just what a “shock” it was to me then! I mean, it felt like “you mean we actually get paid for doing something that is so much just for fun?!” Well, we can fast-forward nearly fifty years, and sometimes it still feels like I am asking that same question, but the idea of “making a living” within music is something that is largely up to each of us, individually.

Well, I finally had the honor of kicking off my upcoming “Slide Guitar Summit” album and documentary by doing a burning version of the great tune “Rocket 88” with none other than the great Johnny Winter himself! We cut the rhythm track that morning, and later in the evening Johnny came right in ready to go with his trusty Gibson Firebird, and I was armed with my new ’57 VOS goldtop, and various other slide guitar possibilities!

We all know what a powerful “communicator” music can be, and even many times when the artist least expects it, or even doesn’t condone it, their music can have a profound effect of folks around the world! One of the real problems with this is when so many writers and performers right away “assume” that they must make a difference to people with their songs, and if that does not happen they feel incredibly let down!

I started off today by cutting a really hot rhythm track for a song Johnny Winter and I will overdub on tonight. It was such a pleasure since the band was so eager to dive into it that when I got there, they had basically already finished recording it! It was “almost” to my liking, and they certainly got the tempo right, but I needed to be more a part of it from the “get go”, and so I re-cut the track with me singing a reference vocal and some rhythm guitar of my own. As it turned out, we ended up nailing the correct feel and tempo even more so with me leading the session………