Hardwood spotlight is a guitar-led blues-rock track with a soul and folk-rock flavor. This song was inspired by my many times working as a studio session musician. Many might initially think that going into the “office” everyday just to get paid to play an instrument is pretty easy. The truth is there can be a lot of blood sweat and tears. When you’re alone sitting in a little box on a wooden-back chair surrounded by so many microphones and stands and wires that you can barely wiggle free, it tends to be quite stressful. When you have to focus on the notes you’re playing being accurate, in-tune, in-time, tight and also making sure your nuances and flow are on-point with the producer’s vision for the song… surviving 8-10 hour days like that is hard enough (even if you’re producing your own record).

With this in mind… there’s a certain feeling you get when you hit that last take perfectly. Often that take comes after many terrible takes or ones with small performance tarnishes here and there just to say “Hey man, I just need one more run from you, k let’s go again”. Heck for me it can take 5 runs through the track just to get me warmed up on some days.

In this song you’ll hear some ups and downs, some buildups and also a “final round” section part way through after what I like to call the “meltdown, fist through a wall stage” (usually comes after 15-20 bad takes) that brings us to the “false end” of the song (SPOILER ALERT!). After the false end is a completely improvised jam section. Very mellow compared to the rest of the song. Often in the studio after you hit that last take as a musician and are done for the day, you and the other musicians there for the session get a sense of relief and euphoria. That sensation translates into an overwhelming need to jam. So before you hit the local pub to celebrate (assuming you’re into that), everyone picks up their instruments for a little half hour impromptu jam before pack-up and strike. In the 60s and 70s, sometimes the engineer would just leave the tape rolling for the jam and some bands have actually come up with some cool stuff during those jam sessions and published them as bonus tracks at the end of records. A good example of this is the song “Weep No More” by British band Bad Company at the end of the album “Stories Told & Untold”. At about 4:59 in the track after a good amount of blank space we find ourselves abruptly thrown into some studio banter and a little jam session. It’s unclear when in the session this would have been exactly but it is a good example of what happens when musicians get antsy or excited while all cooped up in a studio.

Stylistically the track is meant to sound like a relatively raw “live off the floor” session recording to further support the song’s sonic narrative.

So sit back and enjoy this bit of a roller coaster as well as the improvised solo at the very end between Michael Purse on sax and myself on Guitar.