Album | 6 Dimensional
(2020)
Jimmy Foot's first quarantine album
When COVID 19 hit in March 2020, not only did all of my gigs with Ghost Train and Kingfoot cancel, but our studio, Bongo Boy had to close its doors as part of a county-wide shutdown. It was early on, and information was clear that it was spread from close proximity to infected persons, and we took no chances.
I had been planning to record some new songs with a bass player and a drummer, but the virus put the kibosh on that, so I went through some unfinished tracks and found some inspiration to revisit them; "Poor Side of Town", an old Johnny Rivers song from the early 60s that I had recorded several year earlier, "Trippin' Sailor", that I tracked with "Sandy" Jack Reiner on drums and Robin Sylvester on bass on ADAT around 1995, and tracks from a Monday Night Jam from around 2012 with Ken Lawrence on bass, Tim Randles on keys, and Stevie Culture on drums that became "Wah Man". I recorded fresh lead guitar tracks for the 2 instrumentals and a new vocal for "Poor Side".
The title track "6 Dimensional" intro is from a song I wrote in the late 1970s called "Jah Love", and the rest was a spontaneous lyric over a reggae track I had recorded in 2012, tripped out with new lead guitars and vocal lines.
My producer, Dominic Romano, set up some templates for me in our program so that I could lay down tracks for the rest of the album, which are all new songs or old covers except for "We're Gonna Make It", a song that I wrote in the 80s. I played "Long Tall Texan" and "Misirlou" with my band The Argons in 1964. I always liked the song "Wonderful World" for its positive message. I wrote "Dumb Ain't Smart" after visiting the Facebook page of a country artist I did some guitar tracks for and trying my best to imitate his style as a political dig. "Smelly Cigar Guy" is a true story. "Save Yourself" was a spontaneous lyric added to a techno track I had made in 2013 and then embellished with added tracks. "To Ramona" is a Bob Dylan song that I used to sing regularly in the late 1960's, and decided to do an upbeat grassy version now fifty-some years later.
Throughout the course of this album, I would come into the studio by myself and lay down my guitar, bass, keys, and vocal tracks and Dominic pretty much did the rest, working by himself, adding backing vocals, "drum" programming, comping and editing my tracks, and some really creative mixing. On a few songs, Dominic would suggest I come in and add this and that. For the most part, on this tenth album of mine that Dominic has produced and engineered, each song was a handoff of my tracks to Dominic, who did all the rest. It was certainly the first album I've done without being in the room with the producer or engineer, and I'm pretty sure it was
the first album Dominic produced and engineered without seeing the artist, but I'm totally happy with the result!