Running on All Cylinders

In 1977 the live and studio album "Running on Empty" caught the listener's imagination by documenting the singer-songwriter experience of touring and traveling. It was the advent of the portable multi-track recorder and the portable studio, as Browne and Company recorded new songs, covers, and songs in rehearsal — in hotel rooms, on the tour bus with phantom power, and on-stage. His cover of "The Road" by the ultimate singer-songwriter, Danny O'Keefe, is a classic. As a singer-songwriter, I have always wanted to do a solo album with original, traditional, and public-domain pieces when we travel. Another notable effort in the folk genre — perhaps the most underproduced, folk-processed album — is Bruce Springsteen's "Nebraska." The subject matter is dark and depressing, and as it turns out, Springsteen is, by his own account, "clinically depressed." And yet the process of research, writing, recording, and singing is theatrical, tragic, and therapeutic.

Nebraska

Springsteen had just finished the commercial success of "The River" album and world tour. He was struggling with the new pop and superstar status that his music had brought him. He broke away from stardom, rented a suburban home in a working-class neighborhood, and bought a Tascam Portastudio. With acoustic and electric guitar, vocals, and harmonica, he recorded tracks with an engineer. Many were done in one take. Others featured harmonies. Most were ballads and countrified-folk tunes.

Walking the Same Ground

Two years ago, my friend Dick Jones was finishing a book called "Walking the Same Ground." He asked me to write a few songs for the book and accompany him when he did a book reading. There was talk of me putting one of our local bands together to record the stories and songs. And I thought of this as a positive reflection of community — two guys, the author reading a chapter and the singer-songwriter playing the song from each story. People love it. In this new digital world, we have misplaced the photos, the album covers, and the lyric sheets. And then we find them again through broadcasts, podcasts, and thumb drives!

Highway 50 Revisited

Pete Seeger used to say in concert that folk music is "like when you get married — something old (traditional), something new (original), something borrowed (in public domain), and something blue (as in the Delta)." When you hear what was going on with traveling journalists, art deco advertising, and the fusion of music with country swing, folk and cowboy songs, jazz — sweet and hot — and the blues, from 1926 through the Depression, the Big Band Era, and up to rockabilly, there is a fusion of sound and rhythm that should be recreated. I am working on a musical road trip with guitar and vocals, and my wife playing Appalachian dulcimer and singing, while I write and read the stories and play and sing the songs that were shared at roadhouses, cafés, churches, dance halls, and front porches of homes along the way. Highway 50 Colorado Revisited. In telling these stories, we have found a book project, a music project, a broadcast, and a traveling exhibit.

Come With Us

When we add the recipes from the roadhouses, the potlucks and the food from the farmhouse, the art and scenery from the plains into the Rockies, the hands-on fabric of the instruments, the recorders, the quilts, and the wheels on the road — it is a quintessential experience. To celebrate the rebirth of the Great American Road Trip at your café, venue, school, assisted living facility, meeting place, museum, library, or farmer's market, email soundcenturyoriginals@gmail.com. Our home base will be The Shore Arts Center in Lamar, and we want to book in Lamar, Ordway, Crawford, Holly, Pueblo, Florence, Canon City, Cripple Creek and Victor, Cotopaxi, Howard, Salida, Poncha Springs, Monarch, Gunnison, Montrose, and Grand Junction. Email soundcenturyoriginals@gmail.com.

Sound Century Academy is bringing back community radio to the Rockies. All along Highway 50, SCOR Broadcasting is taking the best of radio and producing new shows, like "Folk Heroes," "The Songwriter's Gallery," and "From Broadway to Jones Beach." Email soundcenturyoriginals@gmail.com. That is part of what we are doing at Mylocalpress.com. To advertise, subscribe, or sponsor this cause, email soundcenturyoriginals@gmail.com. 3,000 readers, listeners, and viewers have to be doing something right!