Nashville based, Vancouver born multi-instrumentalist and producer Steve Dawson couldn’t collect any dust during Covid -19.
He released the first of three new records out this year, not including the dozens of albums and singles he produced for other musicians.
He will be bringing his band to the Geomatic Attic, April 9 in support of the first of the three “Gone, Long Gone.”
“Gone, Long Gone” is Steve’s first collection of songs since Solid States and Loose Ends came out in 2016 and features nine original cuts (mostly co-written with Alberta songwriter Matt Patershuk) and a soulful cover of The Faces’ "Ooh La La".
“I hadn’t planned on releasing three CDs,” said Dawson from Nashville, where his is also building his new studio in addition to all of this other projects, including his Henhouse Express
project, for which he recorded singles for up and coming songwriters.
“It’s been a very nerve wracking and interesting two years. It has not been the easiest,” he said.
“ But I was panicking about losing all of my work during Covid, when I decided to experiment with recording remotely,” he said.
He co-wrote most of the new CD with Grande Prairie country/ roots musician Matt Patershuk, with whom he has recorded four albums and with whom he has also toured with.
“ With everything happening, and panicking about losing work, I wasn’t very inspired to come up with lyrics, but I was experimenting with a lot of musical ideas, so I hit up Matt,” Dawson said.
The new CD features a lot of slide guitar and fingerpicking.
“I definitely paid a lot of attention to tones and sounds. And the fingerpicking— that’s just what I do. I don’t even use a pick anymore,” Dawson said.
While he recorded most of his musicians remotely, he was able to record a couple in his studio, like Allison Russell, who Dawson sometimes plays with in Birds of Chicago.
“ She lives three doors down from me and she doesn’t record remotely, so she was able to come to the studio the first time we thought Covid was over,” he said, adding she created her own vocal melodies for the songs.
“ She’s a professional, so I just let her come in and be creative,” he said.
We only had record the about two times, with her, there’s no need to record parts seven or eight times,” he said.
He will be embarking on this tour which includes the April 8 Lethbridge show, with a full band including bassist Jeremy Holmes and keyboardist Chris Gestrin, who are on the new album as well as Ry Cooder’s son Joachim Cooder on drums.
“ I’ve never played with Joachim before,” Dawson said, adding they will actually get to rehearse for a couple of days before the tour in Vancouver.
“I don’t usually rehearse,” Dawson said.
He is excited to release three albums in a year.
“The second one is all instrumental pedal steel guitar and the third one is more like the first one “Gone,Long Gone,” he said, noting the set will concentrate on the first two of these albums.
“Even though the songs are a year old because of Covid, I never got to perform the songs from ‘Gone, Long Gone,’” he said, adding he will also be playing some of the songs from the pedal steel album.
“ Because I’m already bringing so much crap with me, I didn’t have room to bring my own pedal steel guitar, so I’ve arranged for a pedal steel guitar in each city. So that will be challenging, because it’s like driving somebody else’s car. Sometimes the knobs and pedals are in the wrong place,” he said.
One of the projects he recorded remotely during Covid was John Wort Hannam’s new CD “Long Haul.”
“We had planned to work together, before Covid and I thought that project might fall apart, but we were able to work remotely,” he said, noting Keri Latimer from Nathan is on Hannam’s album.
She also did one of the four videos from “Gone, Long Gone.”
“I hate doing videos, but I thought it would be fun to get people who have never made videos before to do videos for some of the songs on this album, he said. She did the video for the title track “Gone,Long Gone”
“ Keri was one of them. She used footage from a family trip from Winnipeg to Calgary. I also got my 14-year-old nephew to do a fun, animated video for ‘Dimes,’” he said.
He is looking forward to touring again.
“It’s going to be a lot of fun. It will be musical mayhem,” Dawson promised.
Steve Dawson plays the Geomatic Attic, April 8 a ty 8 p.m. Tickets are $32.
— by Richard Amery, L.A. Beat Editor
