Here’s a cool new Christmas classic! I’ve been working a lot with Grey DeLisle this year, on her own stuff and a batch of kids-oriented tunes with Eddie Clendening under the band name “The Roughhousers.”
Grey dropped a new video of this song she wrote a couple days ago, a clever ditty about an elf named Clementine who came to Kentucky to get more coal for Santa’s workshop.
This one was a blast to work on, and I think the results turned out really great! We started with a live tracking session that featured Grey on vocals, Eddie Clendening on rhythm guitar, Bernie Dresel on drums, and myself on bass. I then went to town on it, adding a couple of electric guitars, Vox Continental organ, tenor and baritone saxophones, six-string bass, tambourine, and jingle bells. We got Dave Pearlman to overdub some pedal steel guitar.
After all that, we tried several different mixes that I nicknamed after the studio treatment I was going for. The “1964 Skeeter Davis mix,” with tape delay, and a cavernous plate reverb; a “1967 Jeanne C. Riley mix,” with shorter reverb times and no tape echo; and a “1973 Tanya Tucker mix,” which was a lot drier (less reverb) with tons of limiting to emulate an early ’70s country hit record. Listening to the three different mixes, Grey and Eddie decided that they liked the “1973 Tanya Tucker mix” the best. At first I wasn’t sure, but after repeated listens, I knew they were right—this mix cooks! Grey channels her inner country soul diva on this one, and really sings the heck out of it.
Check this one out, I’m really proud of how it turned out. And if you dig it, check out the other Roughhousers videos that Grey and Eddie have released this year, and also Grey’s own music—she’s constantly writing new songs, and I’m amazed at how consistent she is with her songwriting. There’s not a dud in the bunch! Most of her songs feature really fun and creative videos courtesy of https://www.facebook.com/neuman.mannas. Check out Eddie Clendening as a coal mining elf! But for now—put this in your holiday playlists! “Clementine” is a future classic!
