Ben E. Brady - The Lost Studio Sessions

When I was 17 years old I was living with my Dad in Circle City, Arizona and going to high school in Wickenburg and a friend of mine, who lived across the street, had some company come and visit from Owensboro, KY.  They stayed for about 3 months and when they finally decided to go back to Kentucky, they were packing things up in the car and realized they didn't have room for an old beat up guitar they had brought out with them. They asked me if I would like to have it and I jumped at the chance. I had always wanted to learn to play guitar but growing up in a family with 6 brothers and sisters there wasn't a lot of money to spend on a luxury like guitar lessons. So, I took the guitar and nearly drove my Dad crazy with trying to learn how to play from a book. He used to tell me "Throw that damn thing away, you'll never learn to play it."

Well, life has a way of working out in an interesting way and I ended up going back to stay with my mother in Massachusetts, about a month before my 18th birthday. When I turned 18, my mother told me it was time to make my own way in the world and out I went with everything I owned, including that old beat up guitar.  I lived in a small room in a rooming house without any radio or television, tried to get through my junior year of high school for the fifth time (family issues were darn tough on my scholastic career) and spent all of my free time learning how to play the guitar. Some friends from church where I went also played and it was through their patience that things started to sink in.  After a while, I had the opportunity to move back out to Arizona and after a short stay with my Dad, I got a job working as a cowboy on a small cattle ranch. (Pretty fun for a kid who spent most of his life in a mill town just north of Boston.) 

I had been playing guitar for about a year in church, doing gospel music when someone said to me, "You've got a great voice, you should do that for a living".  Well, the job on the ranch between Phoenix and Wickenburg, Arizona was an 'easy' job in terms of the demands on my time, so I figured 'What the heck" and started singing in the local beer joints.

After a short period of time, I wrote the song "Enough to Stay" and happened to play it one night at Larry's bar in Wittmann, AZ. (which is where this picture was taken in 1975)  Annie Olof, Larry's mother, knew a record producer in Wickenburg and she called him on the phone and told him to come to the bar right away. About a half hour or so later, he arrived.  I played the song a few times for him and then he said, "I've got some studio time in Phoenix on Monday. Can you meet me here and we'll go down and record it?" I said "Sure!".  A couple of days later I was in a recording studio with a brand new 12 string guitar that my Dad bought for me, he really was supportive after he saw that I could actually play the thing. 

On the way back from the recording studio we stopped in a beer joint and did an impromptu set and that pretty much launched my singing career on the road. For the next few years I went from beer joints to hotel lounges all over Arizona, New Mexico and West Texas doing a single act. It was a lot of fun, I met a lot of great people, made a bit of money with some record sales and generally had a great time. But life on the road does wear on you and I got tired of singing in a new place every two weeks or so, not having anywhere to get my mail and living in motels or sleeping in the van. That's when I decided to get back to doing computer programming for a living and just play the guitar for recreation and in church, where it was more enjoyable for me and those who were listening.

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I hope you enjoy listening to these as much as I enjoy singing them.
 
I wrote this when I was 19 years old for a girl I had a crush on... It was actually the first "commercial" song I wrote. I used to have a friend who worked for the water company in Aguila, AZ and one day I was helping him read water meters and had this tune stuck in my head. It nearly drove me nuts. I  ended up taking a scrap of paper out of my wallet and wrote the first verse and the chorus. Then one night while singing in Annie's Bar in Wittmann, AZ I finished it and it landed me a day in the recording studio thanks to Predator Records. When I played it on the road it was always a favorite.

Enough to Stay Original - (1976)		 There are times when you come across a song that just 'clicks' and this is one of those songs. One of my favorite good old country songs originally done by Ned Miller, it's been covered by many other famous country artists and it's a lot of fun to sing.




From a Jack to a King
Glen Campbell was a very influential artist to me when I was growing up. When I finally learned how to play the guitar this was one of my favorites. This was written by John Hartford and is probably one of his most successful songs. I used to sit around the old taxi station in Wickenburg, AZ and play this with a guy who was in a band that used to play backup for Glen Campbell. Tom had some pretty wild stories to tell about those times.

Gentle On My Mind		 Old country songs were a real 'staple' for me when I started singing on the road. I was 19 in Arizona, traveling around to different beer joints and many times people would tell me, "You're too young to know those old songs."... and then I'd do some REALLY old ones, just to show them I could. How about some old Jimmie Rodgers and Gene Autry?


Green, Green Grass of Home
When I was about 12 years old my grandfather gave me a cassette tape for Christmas. It was my first 'album' and featured Johnny Cash. I think I drove my parents crazy playing that tape until it finally wore out in the cassette player. Later on, this was the only Johnny Cash song that impressed me.

If I Were A Carpenter		 This is one of my most favorite Christian songs to sing. I started singing in church when I was 18 after I learned how to play guitar and some friends of mine taught me this song. Being from New England it reminds me of home due to it's nautical theme.

Jesus Pilots My Boat
I wrote this when I was 22 years old to sing for an Easter sunrise service at the First Baptist Church in La Luz, New Mexico where I was a member at the time. The pastor, Paul Voorhies, asked me to sing something and I did not want to sing some tired old hymn that would tend to remind people they could be home in bed, still sleeping. So I prayed to God for a song and he gave me this one to wake them up that early in the morning.

Praise God, My Lord Still Lives! (Original - 1978)		 Growing up I was very influenced by folk music of the mid-sixties. Peter, Paul & Mary were so popular you could not go anywhere for any length of time without hearing one of their songs on the radio, (nor Bob Dylan for that matter).  This was actually my most requested song when playing in clubs.

Puff, The Magic Dragon
This is my absolute favorite gospel song. The message really means a lot to me and with its nautical theme, once again it reminds me of home. Whenever I sing it at church people ask me over and over if I'm going to record it on an album.

The Lighthouse		 Lefty Frizzell grew up in a small town in New Mexico and used to pal around with a good friend of mine, Bob Wolfe, who used to also play fiddle with Bob Wills all over west Texas, but it's been done by several artists.

Long Black Veil
This one is my "I'm gonna write a song about something I know nothing about, song." Since I don't drink I figured that was a pretty fair subject and I had always wanted to write a song that also had other people song titles in it. I actually wrote this one while living up in Waterville, Maine (where it's just too darn cold for any sane mortal to live).

The Sunshine of My Heart Is Now The Jim Beam In My Hand (Original - 1990)		 An old folk song, this one was made famous by The Kingston Trio in the early sixties.  This one is a lot of fun for me to do because I get to sing 3 different parts (no not all at the same time) by the magic of recording technology available today it's just too easy to pass up the opportunity to try doing it. If you like folk music, the Kingston Trio was 'IT'
 
Tom Dooley
This is a song I wrote after a conversation with a friend at work. The phrase "Here Today and Gone Tomorrow came up in the conversation and I just thought it would make a great song title. Although there are several songs that have used the phrase, up to that point I had never heard of one. It was fun taking a common phrase and including it in a song. This particular song earned me third place in the Wrangler Country Music Song Contest in Augusta, Maine, sponsored by the Maine Country Music Association. This particular recording was made with the BR-8 and a Digitech Vocalizer which is a nifty piece of audio gear that allows one to sing with one voice and come out with many different harmonies.

Here Today and Gone Tomorrow (Original - 1990) 		This song was written during a four day bus trip from Phoenix Arizona to Lowell Massachusetts, my home town. I was 20 years old and it was a completely miserable trip except for writing this song. I was on a Trailways bus (are they still in business?) and about the time I started singing the second verse, the bus driver was ready to put me off the bus... Greyhound sounded better in the song than Trailways did. This song was recorded using a Tascam DP-01FX/CD 8 Track Portastudio recorder. I have to say, much easier to use than my Boss BR-8.


It's Still A Long Way Home (Original - 1977)
This is one of my favorite Jim Reeves songs and I just thought I would do a recording
and share it with people who possibly hadn't ever heard it before. This song was recorded using a Tascam DP-01FX/CD 8 Track Portastudio recorder.






How Long Has It Been

 Back in the mid-70s this was a song played on one of the country music radio stations in Phoenix (KNIX). The recording was made by the legendary guitarist Chet Atkins who reportedly rarely sang on a recording. I  recorded it off the radio to a cassette tape and nearly played it until it wore out. When I finally learned how to play guitar it was one of my favorite songs to sing. This recording was made by micing the guitar acoustically with an Audio Technica AT2035 condenser microphone instead of plugging into the inputs on the Tascam DP-01FX/CD.

Frog Kissin'
This is a song I found on the very first Garth Brooks album that never got any play on the radio. I try to make it a habit to learn good songs by popular artists that people usually don't get a chance to hear. Anyone can learn the popular songs that get played all the time. For the longest time I could not get through this song without getting really choked up on the last verse.

Cowboy Bill






How These Songs Were Recorded:

On April 1, 1995 a buddy of mine, Chris Stripling, called me up and said "Hey, c'mon over! I just got some new studio recording equipment and I want to fool around with it."  So, after work I packed up my guitar and headed over to Chris' house where he had a studio set up in his basement. (something I would dearly love to be able to do myself!)  So, while he got familiar with the functionality of his new Roland digital 8 track recording equipment I just messed around singing some of my favorites.  I just sat and played and thoroughly enjoyed my afternoon. I didn't know Chris was actually rolling any tape on these. I figured he was just goofing off playing with buttons and knobs and getting to know his equipment. Some of the songs on this page were recorded by Chris.

Quite some time later, just before Christmas 1998, I received a CD-ROM in the mailbox with no label, no return address and no note inside. I put it into the computer and couldn't for the life of me remember when I had done these songs. And then it hit me... one of the songs on the disc (that's not on this page) was Jingle Bells... and I had made a comment to Chris that it felt weird to sing Jingle Bells on April Fools day.  So this is why the page is called "The Lost Studio Sessions".

Several years ago, I got a Boss BR-8 for my birthday. It records up to 64 virtual tracks and is a blast to play around with. I wish I had more time to do it.  Some of the other songs on this page were recorded with that unit here in my office. 

I recently got a TASCAM DP-01FX/CD 8 Track Portastudio recorder it is much simpler to use than the BR-8. One of the really nice features of it is that you can burn a CD-ROM in the unit or you can connect to it via USB and download the songs from the hard disk in the DP-01 to the computer for editing or backup.

I hope you have enjoyed the songs and in some small way have been blessed with the talents that God has given me. I made a promise to Him a long time ago that if He helped me learn how to play the guitar, I would use it for His glory.   I still sing and play in church, 30 years after making that promise.

God bless you all!
Ben E. Brady