John Howard cooking up new CD at Blue Rock Bakery

When the time came for Sarasota singer-songwriter John Howard to record the follow-up to his 2008 release, Touch of Blue, he turned to Ed Kinder at the Blue Rock Bakery recording studio.

Before the recording sessions commenced on Jan. 28, Howard decided he would stick with his past approach of relying on local talent and local resources throughout the recording, production and post-production process.

Howard recorded Touch of Blue at Bare Bones Recording in Nokomis, but with that studio no longer active, he found himself searching for a new place to record. He turned to longtime friend, local musician, graphic artist and jack-of-many-trades Beth Hammer, owner of Velvet Hammer Productions.

“I actually found Ed through Beth,” he explained. “Since my old studio was no longer in existence, I’d asked Beth for referrals and the first name out of the box was Ed Kinder over at Blue Rock Bakery, so I gave him a call and here I am.”

Commenting on his desire to keep it local, he said, “I’m proud of the fact that when I do an album everything is done locally. I think that’s important.”

The new CD will be recorded, mixed and mastered entirely at Blue Rock Bakery in Sarasota.“I like it. It’s very organic, it’s homemade,” Howard said of Kinder’s studio. “You really feel like you’re sitting around your living room. Ed seems to have all the equipment you need to get the job done and he’s a very easygoing, laid-back guy to work with so I don’t feel any pressure to do it this way or that way.”

As was the case with Touch of Blue, Hammer will provide the cover art and graphics and the CD will be duplicated at Velvet Hammer Productions.

Howard, a former Ohio native, Jupiter resident and now-retired financial broker, has been playing music in the Sarasota area for the past 13 years. In addition to his solo gigs and the acoustic duo he recently formed with Asheville, N.C. transplant Jon Nilsen, Howard can be found playing the Blasé Café on Siesta Key and other local venues with an acoustic trio, The Smokin J’s (featuring Johnny LaLa on lead guitar and vocals and D.D. Decker on bass and vocals).

With a tentative working title of Sunlight, the new recording will be Howard’s second CD of original material. He has also recorded two CDs of cover songs.

In 2010, Howard wrote and recorded the BP Oil Spill-inspired single "With A Little Bit of Luck," a song that garnered significant airplay and media coverage locally, as well as “across the pond” in the United Kingdom by the famed BBC.

A New Batch of Songs

The new recording will contain 10 original songs. Comparing the forthcoming CD to his previous release, Howard said, “It’s still Americana music, with a few more up-tempo songs than Touch of Blue.”

Discussing the origins of the potential title track, "Sunlight (A Song for Cindy)," he said, “I had a sister and back in 1970 she died at the age of 16 from a form of leukemia that is really considered curable today, but back then, they weren’t able to cure it. I’ve thought about her so many times since then and this is a reflection on the past 40-some years that she’s been gone. The memories of her are as fresh now as they were 40 years ago.”

The new CD will also feature "She’s Gone," which Howard describes as “my tribute to independent women who go out on their own and decide they’re going to make it in whatever they’re pursuing, whether it’s music, pursuing an education … whatever it is.

“It’s really about a young girl from the frozen north who leaves her home at an early age, heads out to L.A., buys a guitar and a pickup truck and makes a few stops along the way, determined to make it in the music business. I have a 20-year-old daughter who’s a junior in college right now, and the song is for young ladies like her who really have their sights set on a dream and want go for it. I applaud that.”

On a lighter note, there’s a country-inspired tune called "She Ain’t the Kinda Girl You Bring Home to Mama." “It’s about a lady I saw one night who had some excessive libations while out at one of the local bars. My bass player turned to me and said, ‘Did you see that?’ and I said, ‘Yeah, that ain’t the kinda girl you take home to mama,’ and the next day I started writing the song.”

The new record will also feature "Travelers in the Night," a song Howard has been performing locally for the past few years. “It’s a song that everybody seems to like,” he said. “It’s a social commentary, a follow-up of sorts to a song of mine that went viral, 'With a Little Bit of Luck,'” which was later added to subsequent pressings of Touch of Blue.

The inspiration for "Travelers in the Night" derives from “the way things got skewed in the United States in the past decade or so, with young men and women being sent off  to war, while here at home corporate greed has taken over, causing people to lose their jobs and homes,” Howard said. “But, it’s not meant to be maudlin, it’s just meant to be an observation, which is what I do---I sit back and I observe and then I write about it.”

Additional songs include "The Best of Me," "The Time Has Come," "Julianne" and "If I Could Stay Asleep."

The Supporting CastThe recording process began by recording eight live rhythm tracks consisting of Howard’s acoustic rhythm guitar parts and lead vocals (some of which will re-recorded later) and drum and percussion parts performed by this author.

Serving as the foundation upon which the finished songs will be built, the rhythm tracks were recorded during three three-hour sessions spanning a two-week period. Rhythm tracks still need to be recorded for two songs Howard is in the final stages of writing.

On Monday (Feb. 18), Howard returned to the Blue Rock Bakery to re-record some guitar parts. On Wednesday, Nilson is scheduled to begin recording his guitar and mandolin parts, in addition to possibly laying down some bass tracks.

“I’ll also be using our local colorful personality Johnny LaLa on a couple of our songs,” Howard said. “The album really wouldn’t be complete unless we put Johnny’s guitar riffs on there.”For the all-important harmony vocals, Howard will call on longtime friend and musical cohort Stacy Jo Kimbrough. Kimbrough, a former bandmate, sang backing vocals on eight of the 10 songs on Touch of Blue. She is now a lead singer for Blue Mason Barter Company, a popular local country band.

“She’s always my first choice for backup vocals,” Howard said. “As far as male backup vocals, my first choice is James Albritton. I’ve known him for a long time and he’s got a huge voice. Stacy and James together, on top of my lead vocals, I feel it doesn’t get any better than that.”

Howard hopes to release the CD in May or June. He is currently playing some of the new material at his solo shows and duo gigs, playing open-mics and coffee houses with an eye on larger venues for future full band performances. He’s also hoping for airplay on WSLR community radio in Sarasota, WMNF community radio in Tampa and other radio stations that support independent artists.

(Coming soon … a profile of Blue Rock Bakery owner, producer and engineer Ed Kinder.)