This 5-song, 6-track EP (in CD format) features an appearance by Lloyd Maines (pedal steel player and producer for artists including Ray Wylie Hubbard, Richard Buckner, Robert Earl Keen, the Dixie Chicks, and Martin Zellar) on “Golden in the Morning.”
The Long Beds on this project: Michael Perry, Evan Middlesworth, Billy Krause, Chuck Roll, Mary Cutrufello, Ben Lester, “Jane,” and “Amy.”
All songs written by Michael Perry, with additional musical composition, arrangement and production by Evan Middlesworth.
TRACKS WITH DESCRIPTION BY MIKE
- Long Road To You This is a love song for those of us who found love after we had some of our corners knocked off. I originally wrote it as a duet between two world-weary people who met each other late in the game. It ran about 12 minutes long. Evan got tough and made me cut it down closer to three minutes. Let those two poor people get together already!
- Little Guy Wrote this a long time ago in the midst of a friend’s child custody battle. Time passes. Can’t say the same for the hard echoes of human misbehavior.
- Underlined Let’s say you’re alone in a Super 8 Motel alongside the interstate because after warning you for years, she stuffed a note in your boot and blew town for good. Evan laid an easy groove into this one.
- Threads Evan recorded this as an instrumental. I listened to it then wrote whatever came to my head. We shined it up and sync’d it up and recorded it for the Wisconsin Vinyl Collective tour.
- Golden in the Morning Started writing this years ago when I first met my wife. It went through several versions. When we were recording it for this album, my friend and Long Beds guitarist Mary Cutrufello suggested we ask Lloyd Maines to play pedal steel on it. That’s like asking Aaron Rodgers to be on your flag football team. But Mr. Maines said yes. He hits some notes on here that will cut a man.
- Ashes I had three tiny verses, two chords, and one melody. Evan and the band blew it up, broke it down, and Billy took a verse, and I dragged out my dad’s old dented trumpet (it’s in there, you gotta listen quick, we’re not talking Miles Davis here), and I don’t know what genre the thing is, but it’s become one of our most popular “live” songs. I love to just step back and let the band take it where they want.