A lot of singer/songwriters come to play at the Water Canyon Coffee Company in Yucca Valley (now the Frontier Cafe) when they pass through the Mojave Desert between LA and Phoenix or Las Vegas. It’s a room with a high ceiling and hard plaster walls, and carries the sound of a solo guitar and voice better than most rooms I’ve heard. The room seats about 50 or so, and no one is more than about 25 feet from the stage. It’s a perfect, intimate setting for a solo artist, especially one with the emotional range of Tim Easton. You can feel the music as much as hear it.
Tim has been one of my favorite singer/songwriters for a long time. Most of his other records feature backup bands on most cuts, but right from the time I met him, I was most attracted to the way he connects with his solo audience. Tim stands alone as well as any other artist I know. His solo show is completely organic; the music feels like it’s coming out of every person in the room. This is the context that Michael Farrow and I wished to capture and present in this recording; there is nothing between you and the artist. This recording will put you in the room with Tim and a bunch of us desert rats (lately, Tim, an Ohio native, has become a Joshua Tree resident, which qualifies him as a desert rat also). Just close your eyes, kick back, and join us for what I feel is one of the best live recordings ever made of a solo musician.
Academy Award winning engineer Michael Farrow is my favorite engineer in the world. He brings his skills to this project through the long relationship he and I have had since the mid 70s in Indianapolis. Mike’s resume is much too long for this space, but he has recorded and mixed the sound tracks of many of our favorite and best-known movies.
