Howdy. Thought I might share with you a fun experience I had last Saturday. My new album was still in the planning stages 'cause "This One's The Dreamer" has only been out for a few months, but an opportunity knocked...and as we know, sometimes it doesn't knock twice. I found out that Tony Trishka was coming to Toronto with his Banjo/Fusion band to play a gig at "The Comfort Zone". Now he's always been one of my absolute favourite 3 finger banjoists, so I thought I'd "roll the dice", as they say. I phoned him in New Jersey and asked he'd he do me the honour of pickin' a tune with me for the new recording, while he was in Toronto. Jackpot! He said "sure". So I dug up an old swing/country/jazz tune called "Little Rock Gettaway", wrote out a devlishly tricky chart, picked him up, and we went to Mudcatter Paul Mills' studio to record it. Although I've got some very nice guitars, Catter Mike K lent me his beautiful 1950 Martin D-28 to play rhythm guitar on. That's when the problems started........

The big D-28 was too resonant! The rhythm track (played to one of those irritating "click tracks" just had too much sustain (and didn't even sound in time!!). After about five takes, I started getting spooked and was missing chords right and left. I switched to Paul's Laskin, which has a quieter tighter sound, but by then,(in a word) I was a basket case! I'd written a chart where the chords changed on every beat (64 bars..4 chords per bar..figure it out!) with a constantly moving bass line. Problem was I was writing it out at 4 in the morning and didn't leave myself enough time to actually LEARN it. But then Paul stepped in and saved my ass! He's been playing and producing (Stan Rogers, Sharon, Lois, and Bram) in the studio for 30 years, and man, can he follow a chart...and a "click track". He aced the rhythm part, and we were ready for Tony T. and his world-class banjo.

Tony did a lot of warm up excercises with a metronome and then tackled the very hard tune. After a few false starts and some hilarious clinkers he put down two versions of "Little Rock..." that are wonderful to say the least. Lots of surprises, little jazz licks, melodic improvising, and even a bit of "Les Paul" silliness! I'll be going back into the studio in a few weeks to put a mandolin track down (and possibly a guitar break as well) but This time I'll have "practiced" the sucker! I'm in hog heaven, cause it's a great start to the new album...even it it isn't finished for a year.

His reputation as one of the great banjoists of our time is certainly spot on in my book...but I have to say he's an extremely nice guy as well. After a couple of helpings of Duckboots' shephard's pie, he even tried to DO THE DISHES! I think she's in love, and I better pull up my socks.

As the album progresses, I'll probably jot down these "diary kind of things", for any cats who might find them interesting. Any feedback on Mr. Trishka is welcome.

Rick