Your Newest Guitar God

You know, I got a cat door so that I could leave it open at night. My indoor/outdoor cats come to my window at 1:02 AM and meow to be let in. Then they meow to be let back out at say, 1:56 AM. Then around 2:45 AM, they meow at my window. And so on and so forth. This cat door would change my life.

But now I have raccoons. And it’s true, they are adorable. They used to be quite small. Now they seem huge, living large on my garbage. My bin seems to be the only bin in the alley they care about.

I hope their little tummies are reaping the rewards of the expensive Blissful Belly cat food they devour on their many perfectly executed stealth missions through the cat door in the middle of the night. I’ve seen what they eat from my garbage and they need it.

This never occurred to me when I put the cat door in. I did not know what I was welcoming in when I was letting the cats out. 

Which has me thinking about how convoluted it can be to draw a line from where you start to where you are.

What to do with my hands?

I first got a guitar, ladies and gentlemen, to have something to do with my hands when I was on stage.

My secondary goal was to be self-sufficient and play gigs without needing anyone else. Thirty years has passed and that still hasn't happened.

But last month I achieved a career first. I played guitar on my own record.

Now I’m not saying I haven't been up to the task before. But there are so many more talented guitar players who can do what I do, and then so much more, that it has always made sense, efficiency-wise, to hire them. I will sometimes have to show them my chunky little rhythm style,  explain where the emphasis needs to land to make my quirky song work. And then they have to forget all their skills to learn how to speak my particular guitar language. Not everyone can do it. ;-)

So, until recently, I didn't have experience recording my own guitar.

In these new trio recordings – Wonder Women of Country with Brennen Leigh and Melissa Carper – we really just wanted to do what we do and capture who we are together. Brennen and Melissa are both badass musicians. They are so skilled, so naturally talented, with so much experience on stage and in the studio. When discussing how to record, I think it was Melissa who said, “I’m fully confident we can just handle this ourselves.” I nodded in agreement. I was thinking, “Well, I know that you two can.”

So I’m certain that they don't even know how fun and exciting it was for me to play my little swishy guitar parts on this new record. The thrill of making it through an entire take perfectly.

Everything else about the creative process was familiar to me and what I live for. A true joy to be a part of. But when we hit record, I had this new job: Guitar God!

I hope we didn’t create a monster. Only time will tell.

Can I connect this guitar story to the cat door story? Well, I’m gonna try. When I bought that first guitar, simply to hide behind it, I did not know the joy I would be welcoming in by playing it with my friends.

This EP is short and sweet and fun and beautiful. We each brought two songs to the session and knocked it out in two days. I think we captured our chemistry. 

The first single, “Another Broken Heart”, is a song I wrote with Monte Warden (my old pal since we were teenagers) and my ex-husband Bruce Robison. It is one of only three songs Bruce and I ever wrote together. And it’s out today. I hope you dig it!

xo,
Kelly