A great cover of the Gillian Welch song, taken from Eric Ambel’s new album Lakeside, his first for twelve years, out now.
A great cover of the Gillian Welch song, taken from Eric Ambel’s new album Lakeside, his first for twelve years, out now.
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When I heard Gillian Welch & Dave Rawlings’ “Soul Journey” it made an immediate impression on me as my favorite of all their music they had released at that point. Just like I would do with songs I loved when I was a kid with a band I learned “Miss Ohio” and started playing it right away. I loved the song and the small band sound that went with it. When Ryan Adams called to ask if Dave and Gil along with guitarist David Steele (fellow Steve Earle & the Dukes alum) on drums could come down and play the Lakeside Lounge after their big gig at Town Hall celebrating the music of the “Oh Brother Where Art Thou” soundtrack the answer was Of course, please, be our guest. They came down to Avenue B with their own little Shure Vocalmaster PA and a bag of mics. Gillian in a short leather car coat playing a cool Danelectro bass. They called themselves The Esquires. They did a lot of classic rock songs. Did them their own way which usually meant they’d play the whole song and then do a couple more choruses at the end a’capella.
It was a great sound, a great night. We let ‘em play past our curfew ‘cause they were wonderful.
When I was making my Lakeside album at a point we just started doing songs that we knew in the studio and we came upon “Look At Miss Ohio”. Around the time I was working on my record there was a new Dave Rawlings Machine record that had an awesome video for the song “The Weekend” with Dave and Gil in matching red and white Nudie suits.
This all sort of jogged my brain a little while back. I loved that song and I also had a life long dream of doing a gig with a band wearing matching suits. I ended up getting 4 matching red and white track suits off of Amazon for Keith, Phil, Mo and myself. and We fulfilled another dream by actually making a live performance/recording video at my friend Erik Braund’s studio in Greenpoint. It’s live, we are playing. Cheers to you Gillian an Dave.