Time moves on, life situations change, but that creativity bug remains… based on the success Al and I had with the small Tascam PS5, Ed reached out to me one day and asked if I could help Tubby record a few of his originals. Where I’d sat in for a short stretch with Country Fever until their bass player Fred became available, I knew and was friendly with Tubby, so I readily agreed.
Our sessions produced 5 songs, and we were thrilled with the quality. Tubby, in particular, really enjoyed the freedom of recording without a time clock running, as we’d all encountered when we’d rented studio time in the past. Tubby laughed at a playback where he’d done lead and harmony vocals and said, “I sound like Simon and Garfunkel!”, to which I replied, “And that’s a bad thing???”
It wasn’t long before Al, Ed, Tubby and myself became involved with a new project which spawned the first Crossroads release titled “Blueprint”, and we were off to the races. At a gathering over the summer, Steve listened and expressed interest in taking part, even though he was still working with a cover band at the time. We moved things around, made a space for a drum kit in the basement, set up mikes, and as Steve happily proclaimed, “I’m in!”
We never played live as Crossroads… we took a page from Steely Dan’s book and strictly worked on writing and recording new music in our 24 track home studio.
My favorite weapons of choice were my fretless Jazz Bass and my Les Paul
On a couple of our sessions, we had a secret weapon join us. His name is Sean Magee.
Sean Magee is soft spoken, relaxed and casual. He doesn’t affect the typical “guitar face” when he plays, yet his fingers fly across the strings with deadly speed and accuracy. He’s easily on a par with just about any famous guitarist you can think of, yet he lacks the whole ego baggage that usually accompanies that level of skill.
Here’s Sean on lead and Al on vocals playing a blues we call “With You Gone”
Blues vocals are Al’s forte, so the combination of these two on this track elevates it quite nicely. Call me biased, but this one hits like a prizefighter’s best punch.
Just as we’d always done in BATW, we listed everyone’s name as the writers of each song because those individual contributions are what made them what they are. We enjoyed the freedom to listen to a new song and kick around ideas, try different things and ultimately mold them into the final versions.
We lasted a few years, compiling 6 “albums” or collections of songs together before advancing age and declining health eventually brought us to a stop. For me, osteoarthritis had set into my joints, and my left hand would not only lose it’s fluidity, but would actually lock up as I was playing. It was during these sessions that we recorded our last BATW tracks, one of which was a song Ed brought us called “Fire”. I wanted to play this bass track hard and fast, as a callback to our early days, but it took many takes because my hand kept locking up on me. I finally pushed through the pain, screaming as I played (thankfully the bass went into the board, so the mikes were all off).
Here’s Fire
And, as we did with the BATW music, here’s a link you can use to download the six “albums” we put together under the Crossroads banner:
Just as with the BATW download, you’ll see a message stating it’s too big to view, but the Download button at the bottom will allow you to download the compressed file.
While this file isn’t as large as the BATW download, it will still take a little while due to its size.
We hope you enjoy listening!
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