Liner Notes Were My Google

Produced by Chip Young! 
That's what I read on the back of the first Joe Ely album I bought the summer before my freshman year 1977. My good friend Kelly Turner turned me on to Joe. It changed my life. Every musician has their genesis moment. It's whatever initially inspires you to action. That was mine. The moment where I went from dancing to music to figuring out lyrics meant something. It turned me into a liner notes freak.


Liner notes varied from simply being advertisement to containing the lyrics (this was common from the late '60's on). Sometimes they contained basic recording information or messages from and biographies of the artist(s).  

They were my library, my Google!


Warning! This music contains no overdubbing, no electronic gadgetry, no gimmicks and no bullshit! 
That's what I read on the back of the album "At Last" by The Bugs Henderson Group.  It was 1978, I was 16 and a sophomore at Floydada High School in Floydada Tx. Bugs was a blues guitar slinger from Dallas that would come thru Lubbock at least 2 times a year. Amazing Texas Road House Blues.


Produced by Barry Beckett Recorded at Muscle Shoals Sound Studios.  I read Barry's name on the back of The Jealous Kind by Delbert McClinton in 1980. Little did I know I would play on a Lionel Cartwright record years later in Nashville and Barry would be the producer! Are you kidding! These people are real? I couldn't believe it! 


Written by John Scott Sherrill.
Printed under cut # 1 "Wild and Blue" - On the Warner Bros Album by the same title for John Anderson. I worked with and pitched John Scott's catalog at Sony Tree Music Publishing years later. 

Piano - Byron Gallimore  
His name was included with the list of musicians on the 1984 RCA Charlie Pride record "Power of Love" that I bought 2 years before I moved to Nashville. Byron ran Charlie Prides studio on Music Row.
I did a session for a guy named Shane Decker in 1991 that Byron produced that also included Brett Beavers and Deryl Dodd on bass and electric guitar. Brett and I started our indie publishing company that day behind Pride Music Group on a hand shake deal.  Deryl and I later played in the Tracy Lawrence band. Chip Young also produced Deryl's record when I was at Columbia Records doing A&R. I revealed to Chip when I met him that his Joe Ely record had changed my life and eventually lead me to Nashville. He just smiled at me.  
Byron later cut the Beavers/Dodd co-write The Great Divide on Tim McGraw. Brett and I owned that song. Brett played me that song the day we met at Prides studio. 

My liner notes were coming to life!


Mastered by Bobby Hata at Amigo Studio
Recorded and Mixed at Pecan Street Studios Austin Texas - Joe Ely's Musta Notta Gotta Lotta 
Stevie Ray Vaughn - first guitar solo on Soulful Dress - Marcia Ball's Soulful Dress 
Liberty Devitto - drums  - Billy Joel's An Innocent Man. I've been working helping produce a film about drummers and we recently shot Liberty for the film. Crazy Surreal!
Caribou Ranch - Studio in Colorado where Chicago, Joe Walsh, Elton John and many others cut records.I wanted to work here real bad.
Cover illustration – Paul Milosevich - Joe Ely's first record.
The Power Station - studio on west 53rd in NYC. I later worked for Gibson Guitars and their NYC showroom is in the original building where this studio was.


I could go on and on and on. I have so many connecting stories with Liner Notes. It blows my mind.
I just literally read the liner notes and followed my dream.

Liner notes were my Google!