The Rest of the Story (Part 1)

I recently recorded an ode to Jack Brooks and his song "When A Country Boys Comes to the City".

It was a lot of fun to record. At the time, I was in Manhattan, and I very much consider myself a country boy, so the parallels were heavy.

The idea was to give the song a "Bob Dylan's Talking Blues" vibe, with an epic folk jive narrative that would serve as an introduction to the song itself.

My other idea was to bypass the parts of the recording process which to me seem very much bogged down these days. Songs are polished, tweaked, auto-tuned, and correct notes are punched in using the mysteries of science and technology. I didn't want that. I wanted to record the song as close to Real as possible, to share it with my friends and the other people of Earth, and be done with it.

The song is quick and easy, and was recorded as such. The narrative is detailed and complex, and was being spewed off the top of my head, to give it that natural, conversational feel.

Which obviously didn't work. The story is too long. It was dragging. So we cut out the fat and left just the meat and potatoes. I'm quite happy with the result.

I also realized that this could be my outlet to tell the rest of the story. the Whole story.

*****

PART 1: The Man

The story starts with Me, looking for work, and an ad in the paper, looking for Transcription. Which means that Jack had songs but didn't write music. We agreed on a rate, date and time, but before I hung up he disclaimed,

"There's one more thing... I'm a schizophrenic. I'm here at a facility and my nurses have given me approval to meet with you to work on my songs..."

I needed work and a potential client's mental handicap certainly wasn't enough to stop me.

I drove up old Route 1 and through some dirty corners of Chelsea when I found the building. There seemed to be many vagrants and crazy people out front so I knew I was in the right place.

Jack answered the door in gross, greasy jean overalls. He had long scraggly white hair and an even scragglier white beard. He looked like a bum.

He was a gentle fellow. He played me his songs and I wrote them down. I asked him how he got to be here and I'll always remember his reply,

"I started off in Ohio. I was a musician and played a big ole B3 organ. I eventually got caught up with the wrong crowd, with drugs, and crime. I got out of there by the grace of God and ended up in Boston, where I continued to get in with the wrong crowd, with drugs, and crime. I found myself before a judge. He gave me a choice between jail and this here facility and I chose this here facility."

I transcribed his songs and we sent them to the Copyright Office and he received a certificate back that his songs were official. This made Jack very happy. Shortly after he received an offer in the mail...

Part 2: When A Country Boy Comes to the City *coming soon*