Everything In One Man?
A Cheeky New Single
Remember my post about Nashville? Gosh! How long ago that was! But time becomes shorter the more you squeeze in it, and these few years have flown by for me. Finally, what was started back in the US is beginning to show results. The next single, One Man from the upcoming album that was initiated in Nashville, is now out and already in its first fortnight, it has flown to #2 on the AMRAP regional charts, has been added to ABC, added to Country Music Association of Australia and many more stations. Thanks to those who have been playing it, but most importantly, I hope people are enjoying it.
This song began with a lengthy guitar riff which reminded me of something that Joe Bonamassa and Danny Gatton might write on a laid back, chilled Sunday afternoon on the back porch, but it was later changed to something more simple. I enjoyed playing that initial riff over and over and it inspired the first verse of lyrics which just came out one day. The day before tracking, this riff was changed to that simpler one, which matched the lighthearted theme of this song. In a way the riff inspired the lyrics and the lyrics changed the riff. Again, I will go more into that below.
Around the turn of 2017-2018, I was doing some songwriting with 8Ball Aitken. I brought the idea of this song to him to see where he might take it. He liked the opening lines,
Not one man has got it all
As much as they say they do
They will tell you anything
Just to get you
When I first played this to him, he got inspired and started writing down ideas in his notepad straight away. We continued back and forth a lot with various ideas through email and texts, after that initial writing session in person. At some point he suggested some lyrics for the chorus which, I thought, added more humour to the song. I was really happy about this because I didn’t want make the song too serious. He sent me lines in a text while I was on tour and it made me laugh. He added something like this in the chorus:
I need a man who cooks
A man who can fix my car
A man with money to burn
A man who …
A man who will listen to me
A man who …
Then I need to make sure, these men all never meet
He had also hinged the chorus to one chord, as opposed to what I had previously, which was a progression of quite a few chord changes.
And so the song began to have a life of its own. We continued working on it back-and-forth through emails and messages. At the same time I was saving as much money as I could by doing every and any gig, as well as some teaching, to put together enough money to go to Nashville to record an album worth of tracks. 8Ball Aitken put a band together in Nashville, which would be recorded by Michael Flanders. He is an Australian producer/engineer living and working out of Nashville.
Eventually the stars aligned favourably and it was time to fly over to Nashville. This was super exciting. I looked forward to the experience of working with new professional people. At the same time, I wasn’t after an album that would sound like it had been washed, rinsed and dried through the Nashville ‘machine’. I’d like to stress here that we have some amazing musicians back here in Australia who are great to work with too, but at that moment I was seeking something different. I was also after an excuse to visit America again.
But back to that riff. So the day before recording, 8Ball changed the riff for One Man. I was quite nervous to be making such changes at the last minute. I like to be prepared and organised, especially when a lot of money is being spent (which took so long to earn). But I did like what he did. It was simple. The vocal entered sooner, which pulled the listener in much quicker. This new easy feel matched the humour and the tongue in cheek lyrics.
The studio was booked for two full days with the goal of tracking the foundations for 12 tracks. They were long days but it was super fun working with Dennis Holt on drums and Dave Francis on bass and occasionally acoustic guitar. I had a guitar and a microphone and would play along as a guide with Michael Flanders engineering and co-producing and 8Ball co-producing, overlooking the session and sometimes playing along.
Dennis and Dave were the perfect rhythm section for One Man. Not only have they been working together for years but they have a deep understanding of a lot of different styles of music.
We did not record the entire album in Nashville. We laid down the bed tracks which means only the drums, bass and occasionally some acoustic guitar. The sessions were then brought back to Australia to be worked on at home and other places whenever it was possible.
I re-recorded the rhythm guitar for One Man at home. 8Ball Aitken came over for a session at my place. He brought along a Les Paul Junior he had borrowed for me to record the solo on One Man and he put down some slide guitar. We took in turns engineering each other’s recordings underneath my mum’s house using my laptop, a basic interface and a compressor that the Jason Millhouse had lent me for these recordings. Jason is obviously a generous mate besides being a talented producer, engineer and musician who will be mixing a fair chunk of this album and works out of Recordworks in Brisbane. One Man was then put on pause for awhile while I worked on other tracks.
Fast forward to 2021.
There was a time when I did some opening shows for The Black Sorrows and I got to know the band members pretty well. I was a big fan of James Black, the keyboard player. I had seen him play on a show called RocKwiz where each week the band would play different songs with various artists. James would lead the band and played keyboard and a Telecaster guitar. He has been a musician, producer, musical director, composer and performer for 40 years and was a founding member of Mondo Rock and GANGgajang in the 80s, and performed with Men At Work during the late 80s. He produced records for The Black Sorrows, Things of Stone and Wood, Deborah Conway and many others.
I asked James if he would play organ on this song One Man. With his vast amount of experience as a player and a producer, I knew he would be perfect for this track. He said yes…. 🙂
Here is a clip of James playing with Beth Hart on a live RocKwiz show:
Pretty good, eh.
Before recording keys on this track James wondered if perhaps Ross Wilson could have something to add to this song and asked if he could send the track to him. I ran this by my collaborator 8ball Aitken. We both said ‘yes!’ Ross wrote so many great songs – Eagle Rock, Come Back Again and State of The Heart! I was very curious to see what he might have to add.
Here is a clip of one of Ross’s very famous songs from Daddy Cool, Eagle Rock.
What a great song!
Ross played around with some production ideas including hand claps, vocal harmonies and a piano hook line. His most important contribution to this song, I think, was the simple, but perfect, lyric twist in the final chorus. All the choruses prior to this had the final line saying: ‘Then I need to make sure, they all never meet.’ Then Ross rounded it all up with the final line: ‘Then I need to make sure, he’s the one I keep.’ To me, this was the cherry on top and the full stop that this song needed, tying it all together perfectly. Nice one Ross.
The final chorus now went like this:
I need a man who cooks
A man who can fix my car
A man with money to burn
And a man who can rock me in his arms
A man who can listen
I need a man who sweeps me off my feet
Then I need to make sure, he’s the one I keep
Now, back to James’ organ parts…
Now, that Ross had added his parts to the song, it was back to James to record his piano and organ parts. At that time there were quite a lot of Covid lockdowns, James’ studio space was changing and he was in and out of other projects. His time was quite limited. It took awhile for him to be able to record his parts. So, when in early 2024 an email came in with a link to download his organ and piano parts, I was pretty excited. I imported them into my Pro Tools session and they sounded great. They sat in the right spot, didn’t get in the way and added sprinkles of interest in various nooks and crannies of the arrangement. It was definitely worth the three-year wait!
While James’ input was on its way, I started recording the vocals at home with my Sound Deluxe U195 American studio microphone. I had been moving homes a lot so I often had the problem of not having a consistent place to set up my recording gear. I must have moved about 15 times between 2023 – 2024. It is exhausting just thinking about it. But I navigated these insane logistics and laid down the vocals.
James also took interest in producing this song and offered some great suggestions which, of course, I happily took on board. We live in different states and occasionally we would use FaceTime to try out some ideas. After each FaceTime call, I could then record those parts and send it to him via email to check. We were mainly working on vocal parts and song structure by then. James really wanted this song to pop, and structure is such a huge part of that. He didn’t want any unnecessary parts lingering around that we’re not adding to the song… neither did I, for that matter, but I had heard this song hundreds of times over and over by that point and my vision was a little skewed. The fresh eye was very helpful. So there’s a few bars here and there that got the chop, which I could do easily in the Protools session at home.
Now, with most of the hard work out of the way, this song was ready to be mixed. Woo hoo! Finally…. One Man was mixed and mastered by Jason Millhouse, who runs Recordworks in Brisbane. He is always recording and mixing various bands and artists around the place and had mixed a few other tracks of mine before.
All these years, eh? It never ceases to amaze me, how long it takes to work on a song until it is considered finished. One Man has gone through a long evolution. For quite some time it was just a live song, with a half finished recording sitting there in my computer. It’s a great feeling to now finally have it out in the world for people to hear and hopefully enjoy.
You can listen to one man here
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Happy listening!
Credits:
Written by Lecia Louise and 8Ball Aitken
Lyric input by Ross Wilson
Produced by James Black, Lecia Louise, 8Ball Aitken, Ross Wilson, Michael Flanders
Engineered by Michael Flanders, Lecia Louise, 8Ball Aitken
Mixed and mastered by Jason Millhouse at Recordworks
Drawing by Jennie Bell
https://www.jenniebellart.com/
Lyric video by Crafter
Digital artwork by Ben Slater
Drums by Dennis Holt
Bass by Dave Francis
Rhythm, and lead guitars by Lecia Louise
Slide guitar by 8Ball Aitken
Organ and piano by James Black
Lead vocals by Lecia Louise
Vocal harmonies by Rosie Black
Handclaps by Lecia Louise, Jason Millhouse, Nyssa Ray, Ross Wilson
Slide guitar by 8ball Aitken
Organ and piano by James Black
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