My 51st birthday is tomorrow March 18th; I am thinking about music.
When I was a kid all I wanted in music was to be able to pick up a guitar and play lead solos like Ace Frehley or Merle Haggard or Don Rich on Hee Haw. That was the first sound I fell for, the lead guitar.
It didn’t work out that way. I was nearly thirty when I picked up a guitar to find some purpose in it.
I may have waited too long. I wish I would have started sooner. Regardless, I did get around to it and I learned my musical plot in a hurry. I am a songwriter first and foremost. I can live with that. My voice allows me to pull the songs off and I am glad of that.
It is a mysterious thing, songwriting. I don’t spend time analyzing it. Usually, the song comes to me. I don’t go looking for it. That is where the mystery is. No matter, I just thank the Good Lord He gave me an ear for it. When I write a song the words and the music are there together as one. I don’t write words and then wonder what they sound like.
As I look forward to having a third CD of songs, 15 again, properly pressed, I have spent some time revisiting my back catalog. In more of the songs than not, there is an ethereal presence that moves the words and music to better places, be they bright places or melancholy places. That constant presence is the keyboard work of one Rod Wurtele.
You may know him as one of The Wulfe Brothers. Their musical performances have been putting smiles on faces and creating feet to tap and hips to move for a while now. Still, they seem timeless. That is what you want from your music. Justin Hayward said it best, “People want to hang on to the music of their youth.” Groups like The Wulfe Brothers have that kind of quality. They bring a youthful optimism. They are positive, fun, and just plain sound good. Those are youthful things, right?
So I have had the good fortune to be blessed with a keyboard whiz like Rod Wurtele to play on my songs.
Last Sunday, I reminded him that we started doing this in 2001. That is the first time I went into Jeff Carpenter’s Al Fresco’s Place Recording Studio to make a proper recording. Rod helped with that. He made it better. And when I say that I don’t just mean it sounded better. What Rod brings is more than a pressing of the right key here or there. He listens intently and takes a pride in delicately forcing something out that gives a song so much more light and shade and breeze. Rod’s playing does that for a song.
Often it is subtle and in the background, but the mood is truly enhanced. Other times it is quite different and most entertaining.
On one song we did last week, I had to glance over a few times in between banging on my acoustic guitar trying to keep the pace whilst wondering if Rod’s keyboard had stated smoking. He was getting it!
I know of one song we recorded in 2004. He played the most beautiful line that melted me. In the original mix, his keyboard was much more dominant that the final product after some other instruments were added. Now and again, I still take out that original track out of mothballs and give it a go. I love it.
In 2016, Rod and my English teaching mentor, Millard Dunn, and I recorded a love song called Thanks for Loving Me. I wrote it for my dear wife, Carrie. It will be on the new CD forthcoming. It is not the most polished of songs. I say that on my end, not Rod’s. His playing is spot on. What makes this song so special is that it was a work in progress when we came together that day. I planned it that way on purpose. I wanted to share some creative moments with Dr. Dunn and Rod. It worked out. The coolest thing is that the recording on the CD is the one and only time the song was ever played and sung from start to finish. What you hear on the CD happened once and no other time.
Rod, Dr. Dunn, and myself working through the song.
Best of all, Rod Wurtele is a good guy. That is one thing I can say about all the recording I have done with Jeff Carpenter. Save one little run in I had with someone I have not played with in years, making music with the guys has been nothing but a pleasure. I want to believe it is a compliment to my songwriting. I doubt that it is. These guys are just that awesome to play with.
Thank you, Rod. You are one of the keys to whatever musical success I have found.
God Bless You and Yours!
Speaking the rights…
Danny Johnson