recording
Soul Stingers ~ celebration
It has been a near ten year process to organize the recordings of the LLP project, Soul Stingers ~ celebration. Most of the process has been assembled more simple to represent what we might sound like live, though some of the tunes have been produced more thoroughly. The final sound is an authentic and organic development of an original style and effort of covering tunes, many years first as solo performer, and then with specifically added instrument players. Several original songs written and recorded have been included on the third side LP as well.
The song list came about (after 20 years solo) from a chosen list of 125 cover tunes that Michael Rosen and then Todd Richmond and I first began rehearsing via live gigs in 2021. The end result is less about picking the songs to do, and more about life and how things unraveled by 2025, and what was left on the table.
I recorded several songs with specific intention, several in one take moments, several with sessions booked, several in live session attempts, and several live on an iphone. The recordings were engineered by several great talents and also self engineered by myself or by the musicians themselves (as we all do now). The reasons for each of these scenarios is different and the results of the LLP collection are purposeful, organic and uniquely not always about the perfect recording, but more about a captured picture of how real life goes.
In addition to Mark David McKinnis vocal, harmonizer, acoustic guitarist & foot thump,current performing musicians on the recordings include; Tendo Gloria ad lib, background and feature vocals, Michael Rosen on harmonica, Martin Young on lead guitar, Bill Flores on dobro, Jeff Gross on percussion, Gary Wicks on upright bass.
Also in addition to the current live performers, these additional musicians below contributed including; Todd Richmond on fretless bass, Erik Klerks on upright bass, Austin Beede on brush drums, and Andrew Frye on B3 organ.
Engineers participating in a variety of sessions include; JP Hesser - Castaway 7 Studio Ventura, California, Jason Mariani - Carbonite Studio Ojai, California, Jeff Gross - Tarzana, California, Martin Young - Ojai, California, Warren Ross - Santa Barbara, California, Kenny Lee Barrix - Heath, Texas
Austin Beede is a talented drummer who is a part of the group Grateful Shred and provides lessons at Rhythm West in Buellton, California. Luckily he was available and happy to do the recordings at Carbonite Studios, cutting “Nowhere" and "High on the Mountain”, where he added brush drums to each of the orignal songs. He did an amazing job and I could hear why he came so highly recommended. I enjoyed his work so much that I also requested that he work with me on the simple one take cover cuts, and he took me up on it. So at Rhythm West in a drum studio we set up his drum kit and captured him on a portable Zoom recording deck. I edited all 10 tracks to play through one after the other so that the drums could be added in one take with a simple organic performance feel. Austin added his groove with his calm personal touch. Austin is definitely a one of a kind skilled player and person and I am thankful that he provided his creativity and talent to our project.
Todd Richmond, is a multi-instrumentalist from San Diego, California who studied with bassists like Victor Wooten. His skill and the sound he could create on the fretless bass is second to none. Todd and I quickly learned how to be in step with each other over 88 local regional gigs. He was always perfectly aligned within the ideas needed for each song. And even though some of his fretless sound was exchanged for an upright on the recordings, the parts on many songs were of his creation during our performance development and gracefully copied on upright by Erik Klerks.
Erik Klerks is a fantastically thoughful and positive person. He has toured and recorded with the Magic Band, Grandmothers of Invention, Ringo Starr and Bear McCreary. He stepped in for our local Ojai dates at the last minute as we wanted to add an upright to the band. He also added a great vibe to several cuts we recorded, covering several classic tunes with his take and also copying Todd’s fretless parts as directed on others. Erik is a great choice collaborator!
JP Hesser runs Castaway 7 Studios voted 7 years best in Ventura California. JP was always so helpful when musician, Bill Flores, needed to have his flair captured on dobro. JP helped add Bill to the original Soul Stinger cuts, Northern Lights, No Where, High on the Mountain, and also on most covers. JP is very skilled, has a cool set up and has worked with many artists like Chris Robinson Brotherhood, Flava Flav, Public Enemy and many more. Jp personality has turned into a great recording partnership for Soul Stingers in the future.
Jason Mariani is a Grammy award winning audio engineer and co-owner of Carbonite Studios who has recorded with artists like Kenny Loggins, Mumford & Sons, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and Robben Ford. He is a New York native and migrated west to the culture of Ojai. l appreciate Jason accepting the challenge (during pandemic times) of working to capture a live trio rhythm section/ vocal cut, for two of the original songs, No Where and High on the Mountain, now released on our recording. He also engineered three live recordings with the talented Arkansas Hall of Fame, jazz singer Nan Maureen we produced. Everybody was healthy and both teams had fun!
Warren Ross is an engineer and producer who has developed his skills working with producer Jack Richardson. Working with Warren laid the foundational tracks I used in the raw Soul Stingers cover recordings used to rehearse and set the band rehearsals. The original guitar tracks for the reproduced "Northern Lights" cut, was in this batch of recordings in addition to many covers on the recordings. I later recorded Northern Lights vocals there and we captured vocals for Gloria’s cut of Make a Memory. Warren was super efficient and took on quite a bit of work in his chill home studio in Santa Barbara.
Andrew Frye is a native Hot Springs Arkansas talent. He has been a collaborator for over 40 years and was even keyboards on the original Make a Memory theme for ESPN’s, The Fishin Hole, recorded in 1986. (as seen captured in this *pic* behind our band banner at the time, Classisfied.)
Andrew is a one take type fluid keyboard player, having toured for years with country Artists like Charlie Pride and many others after growing up playing organ in church from early on in life. He was a perfect choice to add the final touch of a simple foundational, near one take, B3 organ on our recordings.
Digitally flying in his parts, his engineer, Kenny Lee Barix in Health Texas, advocated that we have captured a most authentic and organic original take on covers with this new recording collection, Soul Stingers ~ celebration.
Special thanks to the iphone camera helpers; Michael McKinnis, Mark Tovar, and many others...
