About three years ago I got
a call from a guy named Norm Pratt. I had heard of Norm as a
musician in the Phoenix area, but I'd never met him. He said
that he and a friend, Mark Naylor, had started a small record
company called Perfect Circle Records, with the mission of promoting
and supporting Arizona singer-songwriters. To this end they were
putting together a compilation CD called "Two
Hours From Anywhere" and they would like me to contribute
a song. I was hesitant because I was rusty, having been up to my
cortex in the world of psychology and behavioral health that has
been my work for the past fifteen years. I had been playing only
in my ADAT studio for the past couple of years, but I managed to
contribute a song and even played on one of Norm's for the project.
Shortly thereafter I started sitting in on some of Norm's solo
gigs and playing guitar and singing. It was clear that we were
speaking the same language. We shared many of the same influences
and had very similar tastes in material and production values.
It was great meeting another musical kindred spirit that I could
talk about amps and stomp boxes etc.with. Norm had asked Dick Furlow,
my old bass player from the Bob Meighan Band to play on some recordings
and it sounded great so we started to use him on some gigs and
suddenly we were a trio. This really jump started my interest in
playing out again.
Phoenix was full of great musical influences when I was a kid growing
up, but it's always been a little limited in it's appreciation
of the singer-songwriter genre, offering very few venues to help
spawn talent. The same appears to me to hold true today. There
are few places to play original acoustic based music. We've been
fortunate enough to find a few, and we're grateful for their support.
While our emphasis remains original music, I love to find great
songs by obscure songwriters and we enjoy lots of influences. One
thing that rings true after thirty plus years as a musician is
that the opportunity to play your own music, to interested listeners
is a privilege and ever rarer gift. We appreciate the new and old
friends we've made with the trio and hope we'll have many more
opportunities to play this music. There's so much to sing and the
hour is late. Hope to see you out.
Bob
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