On the Record

"Easier to Forget"

This series, “On the Record,” will be a weekly Substack exclusive in which I’ll go through my recorded catalog song by song starting with my first album, Alabama Song, which was released on MCA Records in 1998. Photos will be attached if available and tolerable.

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I laughed out loud when I looked at the credits for this song. None other than Tex Greenberg played the “Hebrew National Guitar.”

Kenny (Tex — though that nickname fell by the wayside at some point) Greenberg is the first to draw attention to the fact that he did not grow up on country music. A native of Cleveland, Ohio, he sought it out instead of it being woven into his early musical fabric like it was mine, but no matter — he was the perfect foil for me and I knew it the first time I heard him play acoustic guitar. His electric/lead playing is otherworldly, yes, without a doubt and to hear him let loose with one in his hands is an exhilarating experience. But in my opinion, he’s without peer on acoustic as well if only because of the intention and soul he puts into serving the singer and the song when he plays one. Always the first to make fun of himself, and always a blues guy first and foremost, he took the nickname Tex to use when he played something really country sounding.

On “Easier to Forget,” he set the tone playing that National, which is something we did a lot on Alabama Song as a whole. It just sounded right.

The song is another co-write with Butch, my first husband and my main co-writer for my first four albums. I don’t remember who did what because all of those notebooks have been lost, but I do remember that I came up with the title, the music, and had it started in earnest before he came in to do his part, which was very likely rewriting most or all of the lyrics I had already written. The song is built around what we consider traditional country rules — a four line verse, and what I like to call an hourglass chorus because of the shape it makes when you write it out:

And it’s a sad one. What it reveals is that I hadn’t lived very much life and what I had lived had not been spent contented but rather haunted by things that had gone wrong or hurt me. And honestly, sad songs are way easier to write than happy ones. It takes a very skilled writer to craft a really good positive song and I wasn’t that skilled yet.

The Whitehouse, where we recorded it, was one of those old studios you could only find if you knew which door to go into. Music Row, which is actually not a row but 16th, 17th, and 18th Avenues between Division Street and Wedgewood Avenue in Nashville, is operated (for the most part) from the alleys that are in between the streets. Every building has a back entrance and parking lot, so slipping in and out is done very easily. If you know how the alleys work, you know how the music business in Nashville works. I couldn’t find where The Whitehouse was now, and I’m pretty sure it doesn’t even exist anymore, but it was a pretty cool joint. I remember getting the engineer, Jim DeMain (who recorded the entirety of Miss Fortune and is now a leading mastering engineer), to set up a speaker rig for me to use as monitors in the vocal booth because I was having trouble singing with headphones on during that period for whatever reason (I suspect the reason was inexperience in the studio and probably a run down body — I struggled to stay well during those days and it made singing difficult a lot of times, plus I was prone to smoke cigarettes back then too which wreaked havoc not only on the consistency of my voice but also my hearing because of the inflammation it causes) but that ultimately proved to not be the answer to getting great vocals — getting out of my own head, however, was. I do remember it being very cold, damp, and grey, which means it was probably February 1998 when we did the session. February in Nashville can be brutal.

What an inventive and wonderful recording, though. “Easier to Forget,” is probably one of my favorite moments on the album — I love what Harry Stinson did on percussion. If I remember correctly he just played a drum with his hands. The steel guitar is, of course, stellar, as is the fiddle and well, everything. It’s such a sweet track.

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Personnel:

Kenny “Tex” Greenberg: Producer, National guitar

Richard Bennett: Acoustic Guitar

Glenn Worf: Upright bass

Dan Dugmore: Pedal steel

Joe Spivey: Fiddle

Harry Stinson: Percussion

Recorded by Jim DeMain, assisted by Chris Granger at The Whitehouse, Nashville, TN sometime in the first quarter of 1998.

Mixed by Justin Niebank, additional recording by Richard Dodd.

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By the way, I spent a good portion of today working on new music with Kenny. More on that very soon, I promise.

Thanks for reading these “On the Record” installments. I’m so enjoying writing them. I’ve made ten studio albums so that means I’ll end up covering more than one-hundred songs! More to come next week with “Set You Free.”

Onward,

AM