Dreams Die Hard on Cool Groove records marked a return to recording after a 20 year layoff for Wilmington, New York based singer songwriter, Larry Stone. It also marked a reunion with Fort Worth based band leader, producer, guitarist Jim Colegrove who produced Stone’s earlier collection, Rockin’ Bones, recorded in Dallas in the ’80s. The album contains all original material written by Stone except for one tune by Joe Hutchinson, a musician who wrote and played with Jim Colegrove in the Woodstock, NewYork band Jook, and one tune that Hutchinson collaborated with Stone on, Down on the Borderline, the title track of Colegrove’s Fort Worth band, Lost Country, several years ago.
After over twenty years as a ski jumping coach, Stone has retired from that world and returned to music with new enthusiasm. This album was started during the winter of 2008 with a number of cuts using his band the Stoneman Blues Band, and finished in August 2008 in Fort Worth with Jim and Lost Country. Many of the songs were inspired by life on the farm that Larry and his wife, Meg, run in the beautiful Adirondack Mountains. The rolling Padjolie Blues, as well as the rollicking Ballad of Shorty, a bull who escaped into the nearby woods for a four day vacation, give an insight into life on the Little Black Brook farm which is further embellished by the haunting Here Today, Gone Tomorrow which combines the facts of life on the farm with the loss of a close friend over the past summer.
Special mention to the musicianship includes the great steel playing of Fort Worth’s David McMillan, the sweet harmony singing of Susan Colegrove, and the great touch of producer Jim Colegrove.
Stone says he wanted to make a CD of material that he would like to listen to himself instead of trying to hit any particular market niche."It’s been a long time coming but making this album was enormously satisfying, especially interacting with these talented musicians to flesh out my songs."
Larry Stone - Dreams Die Hard - Cool Groove CD 109 - Now Available.
For more information on Larry visit LittleBlackBrook.com or contact Larry at LHStone@juno.com.
A new CD by Larry Stone has been released in April 2011. Thistles & Salt on Cool Groove records marks the second release for the label by Stone. This record follows his successful Dreams Die Hard from 2008 when Larry made his return to recording after a 20 year layoff from his career. The new songs on this CD reflect both life and death in a very intimate manner from his current home base in the Adirondack Mountains as well as the rural Berkshire town in Northwest Connecticut where he is originally from.
Jim Colegrove produced the record at his studio in Fort Worth, Texas.The new album contains all original material written or co-written by singer songwriter Stone except for three tracks that are older country songs from the Louvin Brothers (Great Atomic Power), Karl and Harty (I’m Here To Get My Baby Out of Jail), Little Jimmy Dickens (Salty Boogie), and a song written by Chris Kowanko (Johnny).
The record was made in late August, early September, and early November 2010. Members of the Fort Worth band Lost Country appear once again on this new release: Jim Colegrove on guitar, bass, mandolin and vocals, Susan Colegrove on vocals, David McMillan on steel guitar, Rob Caslin on bass, and the Texas rock legend, Linda Waring on drums.
The 13 tracks contain some of the finest songs Larry has written to date. It Ain’t Always Roses, It Won’t Be Long, Girl In Blue Denim, and Old Doug and the Salt Bag Blues are a few that you won’t forget once you’ve heard them. Larry gets biblical with John The Baptist. On Cowgone Boogie he moves to the economics of raising beef cattle and does a reprise performance of Aces and Eights (from his first record in 1985) about the life and death of gunfighter Wild Bill Hickok. Out of the Woodwork is a conversation with the blues. Rounding out the record is an instrumental called Sally McGee that features some of the members of Larry’s own Stoneman band. The Angel in Girl in Blue Denim who appears on Paul Mooney’s death bed as well as the fateful love affair which haunted old Doug Ostrander (Old Doug and the Salt Bag Blues) for the rest of his life are true stories which have found new voice in this collection.
Larry Stone’s Thistles & Salt: Review by Keith Gorgas
A new CD recorded in 2010 is now available.
You can order Thistles & Salt now at : Amazon.com.
Interview with Larry Stone
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