The wind was howling Saturday afternoon as I pulled back the big barn doors of the Greenwood Studio in Johnson City, TN. The space heaters inside roared like jet engines as the heat warmed the old barn turned hideaway recording studio near East Tennessee State University.
Greenwood Studios is a life-long dream for Keith Smith, a talented videographer, recording engineer and clever soul that some people call ‘fig newton.’ They say he has quite a sketch he’s performed on rare occasions, but I’ve never seen it. But I do know that Keith’s heart and his interest in the local music scene will no doubt leave us all with a legacy of original music that will be part of history and lore here in East Tennessee for many years to come. His video work will no doubt be some of the best and enduring recordings of life here in the Appalachians.
Read the rest or listen to this new recording here.
When you take a look at the artists Keith has worked with including Brian and The Nightmares, Ed Snodderly, The everybodyfields, The Shazam (the list goes on and on) – it’s obvious he is highly selective about who he works with and that most often turns into great art. In fact, it wasn’t long ago that Keith’s work was nominated for a Grammy award.
Keith and I have crossed paths several times over the past few years and recently, he attended a performance with John Cowan at Gatsbys. Keith had a new friend he wanted to introduce me to Josh Green.
“You’ve got to hear this guy sing…he’s gonna be a star!” Keith boasted above the music. He got real serious too. ‘Josh is a great songwriter and he just moved back from LA and he needs someone to keys on a new project.”
Josh is is in his mid-twenties and has soap star written all over his face. He’s got a lot of enthusiasm and he introduced himself and mentioned that he needed someone to put some more emotion in a new song he was working on and invited me to the studio.
This was before the holidays and after several missed opportunities, I finally had a chance to meet Josh and record some music for him this past weekend. He’s a confident songwriter, a motivated young man and has the potential to generate lots of buzz with his good looks and poetic gentle songs.
‘Dance with Me’ is a pop ballad and a well crafted song with good structure, strong lyric and memorable hooks that could very well get him noticed. Heck…it’s even got a key change!
He’s been working out in Los Angeles for several years, performed a bit in film, met a ex-playmate for a girlfriend and it wasn’t long before he was burnt out in the pace of the west coast. A Kingsport native, Josh is building up his demo here in the Tri-Cities before he heads to Nashville.
I had rehearsed the songs a handful of times before the rehearsal and they seemed Ok with my ad-hoc approach to the studio recording. I brought my entire rig, set it up in the middle of the room next to a toasty heater – put on a set of head phones and worked in piano, organ and strings on Josh’s ballad and I must say – this is good stuff!
Keith’s studio has a homely creative air about it. The old barn is clean, there are rugs and couches surrounding a performance area with several old keyboards, speakers, stands, wires, video equipment – all the tools you need to record both sight and sound.
I played through the music with several interpretations and Keith and Eric sat behind the mixing console recording each take on a desktop. Other than a few extra solos and string pads, the project was over in a few hours and as I mentioned I’m very impressed with the work and can’t to hear the final product.
I’ve presented this material here and this is the property of Josh Green and merely a rough mix of this terrific pop song with the memorable lyric…’Dance with me like w wildfire caught in the wind.’
Click here to play the out-take from the studio..
I was excited to work with Josh and look forward to working with him so more on this project and wish him the best with his work.