Were I a Catholic I might have taken this to confession, but I'm a Mudcatter who can't seem to take himself seriously, so I'll share this embarrassing little tale with you. I was asked to play some banjo on Rita's album "Thinking of You", and forgot to ask the producer Declan O'Dougherty ahead of time what the keys and tempos were. When I got to the studio he said he wanted a "bluegrass feel" on one song. Fine says I, till I find that the key was "F" and the tempo was sort of a tango! Holy cow, I think, if I tell him that the "feel" he's looking for is well nigh impossible on a five string - in that key - in that tempo, he'll think I'm making excuses for lack of skill.
Well, I did some frantic bluegrass revision and made up an "open F" tuning, where I could use some unison slides and made up some oddball rolls to fit the tempo. It worked but took more time than I think he expected it would. When I got home, I was grumbling to Heather about the producer not being familiar with the limitations of 5 string banjo - when all of a sudden it hit me. Declan O'Dougherty was the guy behind the board for Gerry Rafferty's "City to City", perhaps (in my mind) the finest rock-folk album ever made! I had met a hero of mine and not even known it! To hell with the banjo, there were a thousand questions I would have loved to have asked him about the Rafferty album.