Pregnant With CD

Thanks for being here. This is pretty simple, really. I thought it'd be fun to have a blog that tracks the birth and progress of a new CD called "Roses and Hope." For a lot of years I've been writing songs and releasing what we used to call "albums" (the first nine were on 12-inch vinyl LPs). I've written bundles of songs that have never shown up on Marvin Payne albums, mostly songs written for the theatre and for children's fantasy adventures. But fifteen of those collections were unleashed on the world as plain ol' singer/songwriter albums under my name. The last was a live concert of older songs recorded in May of 2010 (with our amps cranked up all the way) at the University of Utah, but it's been about three years since I made a studio CD. (Click on these words for a look, if you'd like.) It's time. So the story begins.

Had I started this blog on the day this new CD was conceived, you would be reading...

15 May 2011

"Last night I played 'The Woman and the Moon' at a big party. April Moriarty (wonderpassion violinist who also played there) said I make guitar music that she just wants to be inside of. She hears hope there. She wants me to make a CD that will bring hope to people. Maybe I will."

Still no blog, but...

24 May 2011

"Today I finished three songs I've been writing for a couple of days, one for young Widow McDowell to sing in the play called 'The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey,' a snazzy jazzy opener for our show for second-graders called 'The Astonishing Truth About Fred,' and the title song for what I hope will be a new CD called 'Roses and Hope.' I like writing days. They're hard work. I'm tired."

Two weeks closer...

8 June 2011

"I played guitar today to accompany a song written by a remarkable young woman named Julie Harman, who was singing at the funeral of her sweetheart who was killed in a plane crash. The kindness and light and celebration of the guy's good life was like a meal of joy--a tender mercy. There's an old folk song called 'None Can Preach the Gospel Like the Mormons Do.' Well, none can make D-18 guitars like the Martins do. That's something to celebrate, too. It was so beautiful driving back from Draper over the ridge that I started writing a song for Mother Earth."


On the very brink of blog day (the suspense builds)...

12 June 2011

"I'm in church, listening to Britt Jenkins's gratitude for the 'tender feelings' of the Lord whispering to her 'You can do better.' It reminds me that His rod and staff are to 'comfort' me. I'm writing a song about tender mercies. I invented a tune for it as I drove up to Salt Lake on Friday morning to jam with my astounding sons Dave and Josh in the 'old man and his sons' band. When I got to Dave's house, he gave me a sheet of music paper and I wrote it down. When Joshua got there we played it through. It's a nice tune, like a lullaby, like a hymn--really simple, suited to the title phrase. Maybe the words need to be about rods, staffs, and confident corrections.

"There is hope. What does that mean?"

And finally, today, (drum roll) The Birth of the Blog.

I guess there are a couple of things I can write. Last Tuesday morning Dave brought his stand-up bass and Joshua brought his glorious archtop guitar into the studio and they added their colors to the basic guitar and vocal of "Roses and Hope" that I'd recorded in the very early hours. Dave played some nice growly lines with his bow, stuff he doesn't get to do in most of his myriad bands. Joshua, who you can usually find fronting a bunch of jazz guys in the Salt Lake Grand Hotel or in prominent alleys at midnight when the weather's good, has this earthy and organic habit of singing as he plays--he might've picked it up playing banjo in the subways of New York, thinking he had to be louder. He doesn't sing melodies, but just primeval wordless moanings of the unutterable passions that drive the music (you sort of have to be there). So he played the whole session with a credit card between his teeth, to remind himself that the plan this time around was for his dad to be the singer. I mixed it into the night and then fiddled with again the next morning with fresh ears.  Here's the current state of the mix (probably pretty much how it'll sound when released). Um, click on the colored words.

This morning the three of us got together again at Dave's and I passed around a rough-hewn lead sheet (with lyrics written yesterday) for "Tender Mercies." We worked out an arrangement, like where Joshua's solo should go (guitar, not primeval wordless moanings), what turnarounds (or not) should bookend it, when Dave should reach for his bow, which verse should pull back into a more introspective mood, finding and noting a tempo that pulses and breathes, stuff like that. My original of the lead sheet was in pencil (the sheet of Dave's that I started last week), and as we worked I switched out a few words that I found easier to sing--also that I thought would be easier to hear, because, after Laurie (my wife), these guys were my first audience for this lyric.

Part of what moved me to write this song was the feeling I always get when I hear somebody's mom or a kid from across town or the Tabernacle Choir sing "Consider the Lilies," written so eloquently by my frequent creative partner of many decades, Roger Hoffman. The beauty always gets me, but I'm also touched by the profound usefulness of that piece. "Tender Mercies" is a different flavor than "Lilies," but it'll be singable in church. I should get Roger to arrange it for piano--our bluesy guitars would never make it past the chapel doors. Here are the words:

Tender mercies touch my eyes—

warm, like a breath of summer skies.

Tender mercies, like the breeze,

bend with angelsong all the trees.

Tender mercies fall like rain—

showers of grace erase my pain.

Tender mercies heal my day,

steal my troubles and tears away.

  Tender mercies cover me,

cloth of covenant over me.

Tender tapestries Jesus wove,

hang like holiness in the grove.

Tender mercies, like a rod,

shepherd me home to my good God.

Tender mercies break my heart,

take my wandering will apart.

Tender mercies cover me,

cloth of covenant over me.

Tender tapestries Jesus wove

hang, like holiness in the grove.

Tender mercies fill His hands—

rich, like a rainbow’s radiant bands.

Tender mercies bathe my feet

when my spirit and Savior meet.

They'll change some before they're recorded in a few days. I'll sing the song at a gig tomorrow, and at another next week. I have to be certain it communicates what it's meant to.

I've splattered all over Facebook the news about this project, along with encouraging my friends to help it see the light of day by pre-ordering in various ways. This is where I'm sending people. (Click away, if you wish.)

So, a little history of the romance, a credit card between the teeth, tender mercies, a vision of birth, and a sales pitch. Let's call this blog entry done. Thanks. This is fun.