Last November, my band and I entered Dennis Moody's studio in Cypress Park (Los Angeles) to begin recording a new album.  Now, nine months later, the mixing is (almost) complete.  What's taking so long?  Conflicting schedules, busy lives, day jobs, vacations, tours.  Anyway, the songs are sounding great and I'm very proud of this, my fourth LP.  For the first time, I have asked someone else (other than the engineer) to be my producer.  Dan Janisch has been a delight to work with in that role.  Dan's one of my favorite musicians in the LA scene, and, apart from his talents as a songwriter and performer, I love the way he thinks about music.  He's also as funny as hell.  As far as I know, Dan's never produced before, apart from his own records (he made his last LP, Medicine Man, all by himself -- all the instruments, the artwork, the lot).  Nevertheless, he's doing a great job with my songs, working with Dennis (no slouch himself!) as the engineer.
 
The album, which will be titled Sweet Time, will feature 11 of my original songs:
(1) Walking out the door
(2) Someday
(3) Sweet time
(4) Anything at all
(5) Part of me
(6) Under the blue skies
(7) Floating
(8) Save me
(9) Oh, how I wish
(10) Run away
(11) Fly away
 
The core band comprises Mark San Filippo on drums, Geoff Rakness on bass (upright and electric), and me on rhythm guitar (acoustic and hollow-body electric).  Peter Kavanaugh, my lead guitarist at live shows, plays electric guitar on four of the cuts; Dan plays guitar on a couple; and one of my guitar heroes, Tony Gilkyson (I have to pinch myself -- Tony Gilkyson!), plays on three.  Mike Bolger, a man of many talents, came in to record piano, accordion, and trumpet on three of the songs.  Honey-throated songbird Lisa Finnie combined with Dan to come up with some tasteful harmonies and backing vocals, which are featured throughout the album.  Mark, Geoff, Peter, Tony, Dan, Mike, and Lisa: thank you so much for your beautiful contributions -- I am so proud of this record.
 
The plan is to finish the mixing (honestly, very minor fixes) in about two weeks, and then send the songs off for mastering.  The artwork is ready (thanks to Laura Heffington for photography and Charlie McGovern for design), so once we get the master we will be set to go with duplication.  Realistically, I don't expect to have the CDs until October at the earliest.  Be patient, my dears.  Be patient.

Thanks to Glen Starkey of the San Luis Obispo New Times for this humorous review and plug for my shows in SLO this Saturday:

My new love

I love Dafni's new CD Charlie's Lonely Sunday so much I'm thinking of marrying it. Right now I'm cleaning the spit off it because we were making out a little while ago, but now I want to play it again and all that good makeout juice is making it skip.

The CD moves smoothly between swinging rockabilly songs like "Dimes" to tango-esque numbers like "Let's Pretend" to folky heartwrenchers like "Broken Letter" to oh hell, every song is a revelation. On my new paramour, I mean Dafni's CD, Dafni sings under the influence of classic jazz vocalists like Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald and Nina Simone (or, if you prefer, think Norah Jones or Madeleine Peyroux for more modern touchstones). It's just a super cool theme record about Charlie's lonely Sunday, I guess. Me likey! That's all you need to know.

Dafni (one name like Seal or Charo or Madonna) is a terrific singer who toured through town last year and is back again to play Linnaea's Cafe on Saturday, Sept. 15. She wrote to say, "I have a new record that I just finished recording with producer Charlie McGovern and I would love it if you could write a review on my new record in addition to mentioning my [8 p.m.] Linnaea's show."

I'm sorry, Dafni, but I don't have time to write a review. Your CD and I have eloped and we're leaving on our honeymoon. I think we'll be very happy together. Don't try to follow us. Our love is too strong to be broken.

In addition to Linnaea's, Dafni and Wil Forbis (lead guitar and banjo) will also be on KCBX's The Minstrel Song Show hosted by Sonnie Brown at about 2 p.m. and doing an in-store appearance at Boo Boo's around 4:30 p.m.

Listen Dafni, you can play your songs for your SLO shows, but your CD and I will be parasailing in Mexico. Don't hate your CD. It couldn't deny our mutual love anymore than I could.

AMERICANA JAZZ
Working in the tradition of jazz classics like Ella, Nina, and Billie, one-named Dafni has created a stellar new CD from which she'll draw for a 2 p.m. KCBX radio spot, a 4:30 p.m. Boo Boo's in-store appearance, and an 8 p.m. Linnaea's Cafe concert.

Thanks to "Tied to the Tracks" host Larry Wines for having me and my band in to the KCSN studio for an interview and live performance last Saturday morning. Wil, Geoff, Mark, and I had a fun time playing some songs from my new CD, "Charlie's Lonely Sunday," plus a cover of the tune "Me, Myself, and I," which Billie Holiday recorded back in 1937. I've put a copy of the interview on the mp3 player on the home page. Please note that the CD onto which Larry was recording the show maxed out about two-thirds of the way through, so you don't get to hear my answer to his question about my influences (I answered something about how I grew up listening to Judy Garland and old Greek music as a kid, and how in later years I became a fan of Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, and Nina Simone). After that we went to a station ID break and replaced the CD, so you don't miss much. Thanks again to Larry for the opportunity to play on his show--and for recommending the all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet for lunch afterward!

I've set up a gallery on CD Baby of CDs that I like that were recorded by my friends in Los Angeles. I'll keep updating it from time to time as I find them. Check out "Dafni recommends" here.

My new album has been recorded, mixed, and mastered. I've put four of the tracks up on my MySpace page, so please head over there to give them a listen. After finishing the artwork and getting the CDs duplicated, I plan to release this album, titled Charlie's Lonely Sunday, sometime this summer.

I'm really pleased with how this record sounds. Geoff Rakness (upright bass), Josh Bandur (accordion), Mark San Filippo (drums), and I (acoustic guitar and vocals) recorded the basic tracks for 16 songs live in one mammoth session on February 10, 2007, at Charlie McGovern's Big Ol' Studio in North Hollywood. On a separate day, my bandmates Edie Murphy (mandolin and fiddle) and Wil Forbis (banjo) overdubbed their parts, mostly playing together to retain somewhat of a live vibe. Three guest musicians made splendid contributions -- Danny Ott playing electric guitar on "This One Dance" and "Down and Dirty," Joshua Grange playing pedal steel on "Broken Letter," and Sarah Stanley singing backing vocals on a song we co-wrote, "Down and Dirty," as well as on "Never Tell You Why." After listening to the rough mixes, Geoff, Mark, Wil, and I decided to rerecord a couple of songs -- "Complicated" and "Honey, Honey" -- with Wil playing jazzy solos on his resonator guitar. Again, we recorded those tracks live. And that was it -- all the recording done quickly with few overdubs. Because most of the tracks were recorded on one day, Charlie's mixes had quite a consistent sound, which we refined a couple of times to get final versions that we were happy with. Last Monday I had Jonathan Belzley at Lurssen Mastering put the final polish on the tracks. Jonathan mastered my previous album, Drifting in Circles, and it was a joy to work with him again and hear the newly mastered tracks through a great pair of speakers.

In the meantime, Laura Heffington took some photos of me for the album artwork. I've posted a couple of them on my MySpace page, too.

Charlie's Lonely Sunday:
1. Dimes in my pocket
2. Let's pretend
3. Broken letter
4. Complicated
5. Down and dirty (co-written with Sarah Stanley)
6. This one dance
7. Bottom of a well (cover of a Tracy Huffman song)
8. Honey, Honey
9. Lonely Sunday
10. Carried away
11. What you meant to me
12. Never tell you why
13. Angeleno

The three songs that didn't make the album were "Esta Canción (The Spanish Song)," "Freight Train" (cover of the century-old Elizabeth Cotten song), and "Veinte Años" (cover of a Buena Vista Social Club song). We decided to leave them off the record to focus more on my original songs and because my Spanish song has dubious lyrics. We included Tracy's song because he's my friend and because he recorded his original version with Charlie at Big Ol'.