Thursday, November 22, 2012

Scholls Ferry

   
  
    'Scholls Ferry' is the first instrumental piece that I have written on the piano. It was written during a somewhat tough time, in the cold, grey days of January. I had a piano in the living room, and I would work on the song as a way to take my mind off of my troubles.
    At the time, I was listening a lot to this incredible album by Peter Rowan and Tony Rice called Quartet. There is a song on that album called 'Trespasses'. I must have subconsciously lifted a bit of the melody from that song and used it as the opening figure of 'Scholls Ferry'. I didn't notice this until later, but it didn't bother me too much as it is just a tiny bit of the melody. And I am sure that figure has been used in another thousand songs as well!
    We recorded 'Scholls Ferry' for You Came Through with Ralph Huntley playing the piano and Sean Oldham on drums. They recorded live together. I think they ran through three takes. It was great having an amazing pianist like Ralph play a song that I had written on the piano. He added some nice touches to the song.
    Afterwards Ralph added organ to the song and I added bass. Then Dan Eccles added the yearning lap steel part and also some acoustic guitar.

    A year earlier I had recorded a version of 'Scholls Ferry' with Kirk VanDerveer at his studio. On this version, I play the piano and organ, Kirk plays acoustic guitar, Sean plays drums and Skip Von Kuske plays bass. This version may eventually end up on the forthcoming Uncle Fester album. But in the meantime you can listen to and download it at my Bandcamp site:  http://daveharding.bandcamp.com/

     Scholls Ferry was a ferry that ran across the Tualatin River, located southwest of Portland, Oregon. Check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholls,_Oregon










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