Rik Barron: The Making Of Shine



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		The Idea I guess I should start at the being. In February of 2001 I had the pleasure of coordinating the children’s concert for the East Coast Music Awards and Conference in Charlottetown, PEI. I worked hard to get my friend Duncan Wells to be part of the show. I was also lucky enough to play in the band he put together for the show. On that lovely morning Duncan closed the show with the song Shine. I had heard it on one of his recordings but being on stage as he sang it and being part of the musical and emotional experience created by him is a memory I cherish. I’d like to side track here a little and say that I think Duncan is one of the most talented singer songwriters that I have ever heard. He writes equally well in a number of genres and is a gifted performer. Go see his shows or buy his recordings. Do both. We’ll skip ahead six years. The idea for Shine the recording started in February 2007 at the ECMA Conference in Halifax . I had talked to an another old friend who’s children had gone to bed many nights listening to my older recordings. While it was flattering, those recordings weren’t particularly suited to bedtime or relaxation for that matter so I started thinking about recording a relaxing CD. I have always tried to make family recordings that children, parents, friends, aunts, uncles, grandparents and all could listen to at the same time. I decided this time to try for something more relaxing. People will all sing together if you give them something to sing. They will listen together if you give them something to listen to as well
I made this recording to try to make the area around us a little nicer and more relaxing for the time you’re listening, and even maybe even a little while after if the tune gets stuck in your head. As I’ve mentioned, the song Shine has been in my head for years I am honored that Duncan has allowed me to use the name for the CD title and the song as the album opener. I have wanted to record it ever since the first time I saw him perform it but hadn’t known what album to put it on. So I decided to call the album Shine and put it as the first song. I figured everything else would work itself out. So I came back to St. John?s and started making Shine. Beginning, Middle & End Kevin Evans of Evans and Doherty, musical partners with Tommy Makem and Liam Clancy and former member of the Garrison Brothers was up first. He and I play together fairly regularly and have collaborated on a number of projects including the ECMA winning Make Hay When the Sunshines (2000) and Old Dogs New Tricks with Barron and Panting. Kevin lives a double continent life bouncing between residences in Ireland and Newfoundland. When he was in Newfoundland last year I asked him to play guitar on the song Shine and things got underway. His twin guitars and production values set the standard for the rest of the recording. He also gave me a multitude of bass line ideas for the track which I gladly used. Day one included "One take Evans" doing his guitars and more than "One take Rik" doing a scratch bass and scratch vocal. Around the same time I hired engineer George Newman of Newman Sound to help me in the studio. George is a gifted engineer and ultimately turned into a gifted producer who helped me live up to the production standards that Kevin Evans had set. With the song Shine in place I was at a loss for what to add next. My wife Sarah recommended Bring Me Little water Sylvie by Leadbelly. I had recorded it about fifteen years ago but have always wanted to a better job on it. My original recording is long out of print and won’t be re-released so I thought I’d give it a try. Sarah is very good picking out songs for me. My friend Barbara Penney came in and sang the female part. Wow. Another one take wonder. And so it went. Slowly but surely and one at a time songs and tunes were added. My friend Tony Ellis was gracious enough to offer me two of his tunes and even sent me a brand new song called Calliope as well. It is a neat song about the river steamboats and their workers. Very light hearted. Very cool melody. I tried to make sure all the songs that were added complimented the previous choices and were different enough not to make the project a one trick pony. Consequently it became increasingly difficult to find songs and tunes. I tried to write some but to be fair, nothing I wrote even came close to the quality of the songs I eventually ended up with. Fortunately I had lots of trusted friends in the studio with me both playing and advising. My daughters Mae and Rose came into the studio and added their voices to the songs. It helped that they are both beautiful singers. Rose even worked a little as an engineer. I love Francesca’s cello playing on Sweethearts, Suzuka Lullaby and Shine. Andrew Lang helped me arrange My Mind’s Got a Mind of it’s Own and sang back up on it and few other songs. Rocker Chris Kearsey found his folk/country sensibilities weren’t to far below the surface and played some beautiful acoustic guitar on Nobody’s Darlin’ and Sleepytown. Gary Taylor (a member of our alter ego folkabilly band The Fousty Toutons) helped out with some riffs and even George and Joanne Newman got into the singing act as well. What instruments did we use? We used a great number of different instruments on the recording. I didn’t keep track of what went where necessarily but in many cases I do remember. The rhythm guitar on Nobody’s Darlin’ is a Martin D18VS. The very first few lead melody notes are me on my Gibson J45 Rosewood. Chris Kearsey plays the second guitar and lead break on an HD28V. Kevin uses the same D18VS on Shine. Most of the banjo playing on the recording was done with a well seasoned Deering Hartford model with a Grenadillo tone-ring. It’s sixteen years old and just gets better and better. There are two banjos on Calliope. The other is a Gibson RB something that I got a number of years ago from Tony Ellis, the writer of Calliope, Sweethearts and Suzuka Lullaby. It is a great banjo. It has a Tony Pass Lost Timbre rim too. Wow. For the banjo aficionado’s the clawhammer playing is done on resonator banjos. Sorry. Then again I will also play three finger Scruggs style on my long necked open back Vega when I feel like it. I won’t bore you with a play by play of each song. I’ll list all the instruments used in no particular order even though I have just mentioned some here. All the flat picking was done with the world’s best picks which are made by Michel Wegen from a town called Lochem in the Netherlands. Acoustic Guitars: Ovation Adamas, Ovation Custom Legend LX with contoured bowl, Gibson J45 Rosewood, Gibson Hummingbird, Gibson Super 200 Custom Cutaway, Garrison G41, Martin HD28V, Martin D18VS and a Martin 0015 Electric guitars: Gretsch White Falcon, Gretsch 6120 Nashville. Both used on Sleepy Town Basses: Ernie Ball Musicman Stingray 5, Danelectro Longhorn, Fender 50’s Precision Bass, Fender Jazz, Fender Jazz fretless and Ibanez Artcore ASB140 Banjos: Deering Hartford Model Gibson RB something Mandolin Family: Weber Bridger Mandolin Weber Bridger Mandola Weber Bridger Octave Mandolin We used ProTools LE 7.0, 7.1, 7.2 , 7.3 and 7.4 before we were finished. It took awhile so we went through some Digidesign upgrades with a Digi 002 Rack. The mikes varied slightly but all the vocals went through either a Rode NTK or Classic II tube mike. The instruments used a matched pair of NT5’s or the NTK. The NTK worked brilliantly on the banjos. The entire album was recorded in my studio here in St. John’s. A real studio with a control room, talk back mikes, sound baffles and an endless supply of D’Addario strings for all the instruments. New strings are essential to getting the tone out of these instruments. That’s’ about it. We had a ball making it. I am honored to have done it with my friends. I hope you like it.