The Stories Behind The Songs
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Into the Light
submitted by Billy McLaughlin
This title came from a dear friend of mine, Lynda Williams, who teaches art in lower Alabama.
She could tell you how I used to start all my shows with this tune. I played it on several tours and never had a name for it until she suggested this one. Back then, I actually swore I would never record it so that people who enjoyed it would always have a reason to leave the house when I came to town.
That oath made no sense once focal dystonia showed me how fragile my performing career could be, so it moved to the top of the list of pieces I wanted on this CD.
It has a celtic feel to me which echoes my own heritage and the title is just right - thanks always LW!
Tapdaddy
submitted by Billy McLaughlin
There was a time when I was in a really great R&B band in north Minneapolis.
I was just out of college but I learned as much in this group as I did in school. Every white musician should enjoy the privilege of being the only white person in an all black band if you ask me - it changed me for the better and twenty years later I'm still making music with people I met from that group.
We are friends forever - just the way I like it.
Not long after the group started, our drummer, Kirk Johnson, started calling me "MacDaddy" and I just thought it was because of my last name and because I had a house full of kids. That was a very, very long time before the term made it into pop culture.
This happy song is about how much those days and all the friends I met still mean to me now.
Don't Know How To Die
submitted by Billy McLaughlin
You might think from the title of this piece that I have thought a lot about that final step we all must someday take - you'd be correct.
I felt like I was in the process of dying as my music was slowly falling away from me through my struggle with focal dystonia. At that point, I couldn't play some of my own favorite compositions. It was easy to feel like giving up, that there was no hope, that I was defeated and I would never create anything beautiful again.
This is one of the first pieces I wrote after getting some basic technique together left-handed. The melody was guiding me to work harder on new skills...bending and layering pull-offs. I started putting the middle section together and I was hit with that sense of wonder I thought I would never have a chance to enjoy ever again - the deep appreciation for even the simplest exercise of the creative process gave me the title.
Eugenio's string arrangement is brilliant and so true to what I had imagined for this piece, that I am forever amazed at how music speaks so clearly as to it's own nature when two musicians embrace the opportunity to collaborate.
Helms Place
submitted by Billy McLaughlin
When I was in college, I lived in Los Angeles in a house that was right next to the busiest freeway in the world - the Santa Monica freeway.
The noise was unbelievable, but after months and months it became a kind of constant rhythm in the background. I wanted to try to capture that constant beat and the excitement of it with my guitar.
I named the piece after the street I lived on - Helms Place.
Church Bells
submitted by Billy McLaughlin
Not intended to have any reference to weddings, this piece gets its title from the opening and closing guitar sequence.
I’ve been told it reminds people of the ending scene in “It’s a Wonderful Life” in which all the church bells across the city are ringing at once. In any case, it was hard not to write something joyful once I started enjoying my left-handed playing.
Away With Words
submitted by Billy McLaughlin
My dear friend Michael Billet has been playing electric guitar in my band for several years.
We have traveled down many many roads together. He has inspired me by his courageous battle with throat cancer and the loss of his ability to speak. He is truly a hero of mine. I had written this piece and was looking for a title for it when a fan in Detroit suggested Away With Words – it really fit perfectly with how hard it is to put some things into words and how sometimes words just aren’t important anymore.
Fingerdance
submitted by Billy McLaughlin
Title tracks are really important to the overall statement an artist is making with a new release.
When it came time to release my first CD on a major label, I was presented with a special challenge because they wanted to include new recordings of my most requested but previously recorded compositions.
Any new compositions on the CD needed to be extraordinary. I feel that in Fingerdance I was able to reach a new level of independence between the melody and the bass line. For me, it was a feeling of new-found freedom… on the guitar, with my hands, in my ability to express myself.
That feeling of freedom inspired the title to this piece. I love the string arrangement that Eugenio contributed!