Grateful Dead Music Forum

I'm pleased to say that my first original record "Crooked Soul" will be up on iTunes sometime today, but can be fully streamed at the link here or bought digitally or as a "real" CD as well.

http://vicderobertis.com

It's rootsy sounding, a little bit alt-country, with some Dead tinges, of course. I'm playing acoustic guitars with some of New England's finest musicians, including the great Duke Levine (Mary-Chapin Carpenter, Rosanne Cash, Martin Sexton) on electric guitars, Marco Giovino (Robert Plant's Band of Joy) on drums, Richard Gates (Aimee Mann, Patty Larkin) on bass, Kevin Barry (Rosanne Cash, Peter Wolf) on pedal steel and lap steel, Dave Limina (Ronnie Earl and the Broadcasters) on organ and Wurlitzer. It was produced by Lorne Entress (Lori McKenna, Catie Curtis, among countless others). Lorne did some great harmony vocals and added some Moog bass, as well.

Closest thing to a Dead tune is probably track 5, "John Henry," with a nod to Dark Star and a really great interplay between Duke's electric guitar and Kevin's pedal steel on the outro.

Take a listen!

Sounds great, Vic!! I love the tunes the playing, and production. It's cool that you chose to play acoustic and get the other guy to play the electric stuff, though you could've killed it too. What guitar were you recording with? It came out really nice.

Thanks, man!

The funny thing is, I walked into the basic sessions with three acoustics and a Gibson R9 ... Duke Levine was in the live room warming up and after hearing him, I never took the damn electric out of the case

I mostly played a Froggy Bottom M Deluxe (rosewood/adirondack) at the sessions and did some overdubs with the Froggy and a Collings C10 (mahogany/sitka). There may be a Martin on there in a spot or two, but it was primarily those guitars.

playingdead wrote: The funny thing is, I walked into the basic sessions with three acoustics and a Gibson R9 ... Duke Levine was in the live room warming up and after hearing him, I never took the damn electric out of the case

Sounds like the story Al Kooper tells about getting to Dylan's Rolling Stone sessions and hearing Bloomfield warming up! "Ahhhh... well then...where's the organ..?".

Sometimes Love Shatters hit me with the Feels.

Listened to John Henry, love the haunting quality. Great production.

Gear info for the electric guitar part?

Happy to snag this next time I go to iTunes store.

Thanks for the kind words! Here's the iTunes link:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/crook ... d978388845

Duke's tone was a lesson in simplicity and vintage goodness ... he played through an old Vox AC-15 Twin head into an open back amp cabinet with a 12" vintage Celestion, if I remember correctly. He used very little in the way of effects, mostly just tremolo and a volume pedal. He would sometimes ask for a little reverb from the control room. Mostly it was just an old low watt tube amp turned up nice and loud (outside the live room, it was miked up in the stairway leading to the control room).

He had a Mad Professor Sweet Honey overdrive and Mad Professor Deep Blue Delay on his pedal board but I don't think he was using the overdrive. The tremolo was a Cusack Tap-a-Whirl. No compression, boosters, buffers, etc. He played a Fender Custom Shop 50s relic Tele, an old Supro and an old Gretsch with Filtertrons, and even though I've been playing guitar for 35 years now, I have no idea how he got some of the sounds he got ... it would sound like a Wurlitzer piano, a pedal steel, haunting echoes ... unreal. At the very end of Perfect Day he somehow hits a 2-note harmonic and bends it UP a whole step. The first half of the solo on Blame Your Luck is just killer tone, it's a Tele but sounds like a pedal steel (until the real pedal steel takes the second half of the solo), as is the first solo on John Henry. The tone on John Henry, to me, is definitive. I have the isolated tracks but when you hear how it sits in the mix, it's just perfect.

He did use a lot of volume pedal for swells and effects though, something I want to try my hand at. What a treat it was to work with him, he's a national treasure as far as I'm concerned. Check out his solo records, they are dripping with great tone.

playingdead wrote:At the very end of Perfect Day he somehow hits a 2-note harmonic and bends it UP a whole step..

Sounds like" the old behind the nut bend trick" as Maxwell Smart might say.

I was lucky enough to have Vic share his tune, "John Henry" with me a day or two ago. Whomever used the term "haunting" I think is a great descriptor. I told Vic I heard a tinge of Dark Star in that song??. Maybe the opening, I'm not a professional musician, nor am I trying to over analyze anything, but I really liked what I've heard so far. Congrats man

Really top notch production/playing. Sounds GREAT Vic!

I'll pick it up on iTunes tonight when I get home.

john in san diego

Thanks folks! And I will have to try that behind the nut technique

Getting back to Duke for a moment, I found this video of him where he's being interview by someone about inspiration, and it's just a great example of how fluid and effortless his playing is, even as he's just switching between pickups and demonstrating a couple of things. Great basic tone and tremendous touch. It's not exactly a pro-level video (annoying intro) but you can just hear it in his hands. I can't say enough about him. He was just touring with The J. Geils Band, and opening for Bob Seger with them. He's played on everybody's records in this area. And his solo instrumental records are killer, too.