Musician's Widow

Lookie what I haaaave. One of the Rick Tiger “Thought I’d Be Home By Now” CDs that we ran in a giveaway last week. A panel of judges voted on your comments to choose a winner… and I thought I’d share them with everyone!

Martha wrote…Great listening! Reminds me of my childhood when the relatives would get together on a saturday night and just play music. Everyone had a chance to express their feelings through music and that’s what I hear in Rick’s CD. The true to heart feelings that come through each song. Good job Rick. Look forward to hearing you cut another CD soon.

Anne wrote… I like honest, genuine music, that’s this CD. The fact that I’ve met some of the people who helped make this music is just icing on the cake – I’d love to share the songs and feelings with a friend. :)

Brett wrote… I listened to this album and I can say that it is one that you can just press play and let it roll. Rick delivers these 10 songs in a manner that makes you want to listen because you hear the truth in it and you capture the feeling of pure emotion in the lyrics.

Thank you to ALL of our entrants!! Your support of this project and interest in sharing the music means a lot to Rick and everyone involved.

If you are interested in the CD, remember you can pick it up at iTunes and CD Baby. Winners check your email for how to receive your prizes… Rick would like to drop the CDs in the mail tomorrow, so you get them by Christmas.

I have closed comments on the other post, but I welcome anyone wishing to still comment on the CD and leave their feedback to do so here!

Have you ever had a CD that you just loved that you wished you could share with everyone you know? I’m betting you have… and you probably just copied it using your computer and burned it to another CD to share. Am I right?

Well, I happen to have a CD I love — that I am in fact proud to have been a part of the making — and instead of burning a copy for friends, I’m giving away copies for you to share yourself!

Rick Tiger’s “Thought I’d Be Home By Now” is available for purchase through iTunes and CD Baby. It’s a labor of love for everyone involved. Rick is a dear friend, one who has totally taken me, my husband, and countless others under his wings. Several friends call him, “Daddy Rick” and that about sums it up right there.

So, as I said, this CD is one we were all honored to be a part of making.

From Rick’s own liner notes:

Here is a total labor of love mixed with honesty, emotion and humility. I am so blessed and humbled to be a part of it. I have been a fortunate and lucky man most of my life and this project is no different. It is surrounded by the incredible talent of some endearing friends of mine. I hope you enjoy listening as much as we had creating and when you reach the final note I hope you know me and who I am a little more. God Bless.

Outside of it being a special CD for those involved its just REALLY GREAT MUSIC. Music presented by the man who wrote the songs… the love and emotions in the songs are impossible to miss. The talent of the musicians and engineers who contributed their time and talent to the album just put that finishing touch to each track. If you haven’t heard the album, you can hear clips of each song over on CDBaby and get a little taste of what I am talking about.

I’ve watched people purchase multiple copies to share with friends and family, and it got me thinking… I’d like to host a giveaway of the CD. So I approached Rick with the idea, and he was all for it… in fact he upped the prize…

Three (3) copies to a first place winner, Two (2) copies to a second place winner, and One (1) copy to a third place winner. All autographed. WOW!!

So here is how you enter to win… as I said, this is in the spirit of sharing great music, so what I am asking you to do to enter to win is simple… between now and Sunday, December 18, in the comments below simply tell me in 50 words or less how YOU best describe this album and why you want to share it with friends and family.  The winners will be picked by voting next week. Make sure you leave your name and email so I can let you know you won!

If by some chance you just don’t want to take your chances with the giveaway, you can pick up copies via CD Baby and iTunes (where you can also gift it to a friend!).

Disclaimer for the lawyer types: I’m not receiving any compensation for holding this Giveaway outside of the joy of sharing friends’ work with others. Otherwise, we’re music-types. We’re all broke. So there. Thanks!

Okay, with that little unpleasantness over with… get to describing this album! GO!

As I posted earlier this week, I was in the studio shooting photos for a friend’s new recording project. First off, I really want to do more of this kind of photography. Everyone shoots live concerts. Anyone can do head shots, etc. I want to document the creative process.

And it is a process!! By the time you purchase a CD (or download a song from iTunes) hours upon hours of time went into that final product. Which is precisely why music pirating is SO damaging to the music industry! (No, this blog post isn’t going to be a huge, “Music sharing is evil!” post. So don’t run away!)

I am not going to claim to know all the ins and outs of the recording process, but I have been around enough studios to know a few things. One of those things is that I could seriously sit and watch it happen for hours. (Well, given I have slept the night before… going into the studio on no sleep is pretty much a bad idea.)

A song starts with a songwriter. The person or people who conceive an idea. It might be a throw away line someone overheard in a bar. It might just be a single concept. For example, a song that I absolutely just love written by friends came to be just because they thought it might be fun to write about tattoos.  Yes, tattoos. What came to be is a beautiful song that you should go listen to. (Visit here and check out “These Tattoos”… then go ahead and listen to everything else on that page. Kay?)

Skipping ahead a WHOOOOOOLE LOT OF STEPS, like years of tedious steps (did you know a lot of the songs you hear on radio today were probably written years ago?), lets pretend a song has been chosen to go on an album. Hallelujah, that songwriter whose heart is in the words celebrates, here we go!

Here is where the studio time comes in…

I posted on Twitter the other day that the recording process reminds me a lot of the writing editing process. You take the whole story/article/post in general, then you take it apart piece by piece. Word by word. Sentence by sentence. Perfecting it. Tweaking it. Making it a masterpiece.

Now take a song. You have the basic song — the whole story. It has a groove. Then… it comes to life as piece by piece is added. Music. Vocals. Background vocals. Each piece can take hours as you perfect it.  Bobble a segment, that’s okay. You can do it again. And again. And again. And that moment it just comes out PERFECT? You can get goosebumps its just so good. Some little pieces might get scrapped for a better idea later. Often when you leave the studio after you’ve done your part, you still have no REAL grasp of what its going to sound like in the end.

Once all the pieces have been recorded, it goes to mastering. This piece is louder than that piece. Maybe we decide we don’t REALLY want background vocals in this line, so lets cut those out. The guitar laid down a great solo over here, but the piano’s solo just fits better, so lets put that in instead.

HOURS go into the recording and editing processes. By the time you listen to that song on your iPod, a producer, artist, engineer and musicians will have spent the equivalent of days of time on it. Not to mention the love and soul of the writer that started the whole thing. Its these hours that are forgotten that I got to photograph this week. These hours that no one sees in little studios all over the place. On any given day, the #1 hit of next year could be finding life through the talents of the people whose names you may never know.

It’s a true labor of love.

I’m doing the photos for a friends CD project coming out next month. Today was day 1 of recording… day 2 to be announced. I had SO much fun, and the whole recording studio thing is a blog post in and of itself.

Today was good for me… SO good for me. I’ve been having a few moments of uncertainty about things in general. Chasing the almighty dollar versus doing what is my passion. And beyond that, my passion seems to be everyone’s passion these days. But today just put a lot of confidence back in myself… reminded me of my passion and ever-evolving skills with the camera.

Anyway, I thought I’d share some of my favorite shots from today.

My husband and his "other woman"

I noticed yesterday that I had a hit on this blog with the search, “musicians love music more than spouce.” Yeah, I didn’t fix the spelling. Keepin’ it real here.

That really made me stop. It really made me a little sad. It really made me want to share my point of view on that.

There was a period of time when my husband and I were dating that I thought that myself. In fact, for awhile it made things easier to think, “The music comes first. And I come second.” Deep down, I spent a lot of time wrestling with that thought and the feelings that accompanied it. Was I okay with that? Was that even true?

Here I am, four and a half years into our marriage, and I realize that thought I had couldn’t be further from the truth. And maybe… maybe I can help the person who did that search come to realize what I’ve come to realize.

Music isn’t something my husband loves. No, its simply a part of who he is. Music is in his soul. It’s as much a part of him as is his arms and legs. It’s practically in his DNA. He needs it like he needs air and water. Even if he were to quit the music tomorrow, he’d still play. He’d still pick apart songs on the radio. He’d still tune my voice out to listen to whatever is being piped through the little speakers in a restaurant.

It’s not that he loves music more than me. It’s that the music is a part of him. And it is in that fact, that I love the music, too.  I have always loved music, but I love it in a different way today. It is a part of our life — at times it IS our life — because its just who he is.

We have a running joke that his Leslie speaker is his “other woman.”  And that I bought her for him. He sees her more than he sees me these days. It’s a lighthearted humor we have in this crazy life.

We’ve talked at length about how WE come before the music. We’ve at least once faced the possibility of walking away from the music, because we thought it was what we needed. Thankfully? Unseen forces threw us right back into the life… wild, crazy, wacky and stressful as it is. I am thankful. Because its just a part of who my husband is… dare I say he is most alive when he’s on stage and everything is clicking. Harmonies, mixes, his piano sound, the Leslie is singing… even when he’s exhausted there’s the light in his eyes.

Simply put, music is a huge part of the man I fell in love with and married. It doesn’t come first, because for a musician… it is not a thing TO come first.

YOU, their spouse, come first. You keep them grounded. You give them the momentum and reason to keep going. Support them. Love them. Love the music. And you’ll find a beautiful harmony in your life.

I watch the CMAs these days to root for our friends who work for the artists performing on the show. However, I still get excited to see who wins the awards, even if sometimes I thoroughly disagree with the results.

So, for giggles, I thought I’d throw out there my predictions for tonight’s show.

Entertainer of the Year
Lady Antebellum
Miranda Lambert
Brad Paisley Winner!
Keith Urban
Zac Brown Band

I think Brad will take this one mostly due to his being a huge ambassador for Nashville and the Grand Ole Opry with the flood. He’s been out there in front of the cameras the most out of all of these guys this year. Though, look for Lady A to give him a run for it.

Female Vocalist of the Year
Miranda Lambert Winner!
Martina McBride
Reba McEntire
Taylor Swift
Carrie Underwood

This is Miranda’s year. Period. She’s earned it and it is time.

Male Vocalist of the Year
Dierks Bentley
Brad Paisley
Blake Shelton Winner!
George Strait
Keith Urban

A lot of people have Blake as the favorite for this, which would be poetic if Miranda won. Country’s new top couple. But I just see Brad snagging this one again this year.

New Artist
Luke Bryan
Easton Corbin
Jerrod Niemann
Chris Young
Zac Brown Band Winner!

This is a tough one to call. The only TRUE *NEW* artist in here is Jerrod Neimann, so, by rights, I think it should go to him. All the rest either are on their second album or have had multiple hits on radio, where as Jerrod has had ONE that rocked the planet. I’m going to call it Zac Brown Band as the winner simply due to their huge success and popularity.

Vocal Group
Lady Antebellum Winner!
Little Big Town
Rascal Flatts
The Band Perry
Zac Brown Band

Nothing can stop Lady A these days… and rightfully so! These guys are the real deal with HUGE appeal across genres.

Vocal Duo
Brooks & Dunn
Joey + Rory
Montgomery Gentry
Steel Magnolia
Sugarland  Winner!

Brooks & Dunn will take this one for old times sake. Give it to them their last year. They’ve earned it.

Musical Event of the Year
“Bad Angel” Dierks Bentley featuring Miranda Lambert and Jamey Johnson
“Can’t You See” Zac Brown Band featuring Kid Rock
“Hillbilly Bone” Blake Shelton featuring Trace Adkins Winner!
“I’m Alive” Kenny Chesney with Dave Matthews
“Till The End” Alan Jackson with Lee Ann Womack

Huge success for Trace and Blake. Its consistently taken the win in other award shows, and I predict that to continue tonight.

Single of the Year
(Award goes to artist and producer)

‘A Little More Country Than That’
Easton Corbin
Producer: Carson Chamberlain

‘Hillbilly Bone’
Blake Shelton featuring Trace Adkins
Producer: Scott Hendricks

‘Need You Now’ Winner!
Lady Antebellum
Producers: Paul Worley and Lady Antebellum

‘The House That Built Me’
Miranda Lambert
Producers: Frank Liddell and Mike Wrucke

‘White Liar’
Miranda Lambert
Producers: Frank Liddell and Mike Wrucke

Single of the year will go to ‘Need You Now’ due to its wildly popular success in multiple genres and… hey, its just a really awesome song and well done. I still stop to listen to it any time I am surfing channels.

Song of the Year
(Award goes to songwriters)

‘A Little More Country Than That’
Songwriters: Rory Lee Feek, Don Poythress and Wynn Varble

‘Need You Now’
Songwriters: Dave Haywood, Charles Kelley, Hillary Scott and Josh Kear

‘The House That Built Me’ Winner!
Songwriters: Tom Douglas and Allen Shamblin

‘Toes’
Songwriters: Zac Brown, Wyatt Durrette, John Driskell Hopkins and Shawn Mullins

‘White Liar’
Songwriters: Miranda Lambert and Natalie Hemby

You can’t deny this song makes you cry. Come on. Admit it. I can’t even listen to it much of the time because it tugs at my heart so hard. And when a song does that… its the best of the best.

Music Video
(Award goes to artist and director)

‘Hillbilly Bone’
Blake Shelton featuring Trace Adkins
Director: Roman White

‘Need You Now’
Lady Antebellum
Director: David McClister

‘The House That Built Me’  Winner!
Miranda Lambert
Director: Trey Fanjoy

‘Water’
Brad Paisley
Director: Jim Shea

‘White Liar’
Miranda Lambert
Director: Chris Hickey

Hands down. Best video of the year. They’re all great, but this one just took it to the next level.

Album of the year
(Award goes to Artist and Producer)

Need You Now
Lady Antebellum
Paul Worley and Lady Antebellum producer
Capitol Records Nashville

Play On
Carrie Underwood
Mark Bright and Max Martin producer
19 Recordings Limited/Arista Nashville

Revolution Winner!
Miranda Lambert
Frank Liddell and Mike Wrucke producer
Columbia Nashville

Twang
George Strait
Tony Brown and George Strait producer
MCA Nashville

Up On The Ridge
Dierks Bentley
Jon Randall Stewart producer
Capitol Records Nashville

I’m going with Miranda on this one. She just consistently puts out solid albums that are well produced, well thought out, and leave me wanting to listen over and over again.

Musician
Paul Frankin — Steel Guitar
Dann Huff — Guitar
Brent Mason — Guitar
Mac McAnally — Guitar Winner!
Randy Scruggs — Guitar

Not EVEN a clue. And you’d think I’d know as “musician’s widow.” I’m going with the “one of these things is not like the other” option.