5/20/10 Update on Pre-Orders and Territown

Greetings and Happy Mother’s Day!

Be you a Mom, Aunt, Sister, Friend, Teacher, you name it … all you ladies, I salute you. Be sure to use your “key” (the link below) to get your free gift this month … and feel free to share your gift with your friends!

GoatNotes It Shall Be

A few months ago, I encouraged you folks via “GoatNotes” to sign up for a new group called “Territown.” My wish was to create a separate list for you frequent flyers where special deals would be offered on my shows or new music. To get a “key” to this new group, I asked that you email back and tell me where you first heard my music.

My goal was twofold: I wanted to do something special for the people who have been supportive of my career over the years, and I wanted to get a better sense of who was on my email list. You see, I don’t miss the postage bills I accrued in the heyday of my original (paper) mailing list (not to mention the thought of the geological footprint it left), but I do miss having a face to go with every name — or having names, period. It’s hard to get a sense of the person with whom you are communicating when you only know them as “popml@theirserver.com.”

Upon reading the messages many of you sent me (to get that “key” into “Territown”), I was both touched and inspired. I want you to know that I kept every single one of your emails and photos.

After my team here at Wilory went about compiling the “new” list, we then sent out an email to “Territown” announcing that I have a new record and book, both called “Cry Till You Laugh,” coming out June 22. We told everyone who got the email that if they wanted to pre-order and get a “special price” for “Territown” members, all they needed to do was fill in the code words “Happy Feet” on their order form.

Well … almost immediately upon sending out that email, the calls started coming in for last minute additions to the “new” list. One of my favorites was the little girl who called and left this message on our answering machine: “My Mom’s on the Goat list but you need to add US to the NEW list.” She then whispered “happy feet” into the receiver, and followed that by shouting, “Our email is J underscore ... hyphen at ...,” until her message concluded with “dot com” and a chorus of giggles.

It didn’t take me long to realize that I can’t have a “membership” list. It’s not going to work for most of you or, frankly, me, because the majority of you switched to my new list anyway. So, my newsletter will remain “GoatNotes.” It will be much easier to manage and frankly more “me” than a “town.” In case you’re wondering where your “key” is, if you received this, you already have it. As a matter of fact, I have my first gift for you this month in honor of “Mother’s Day.” To pick it up, click the link in this email that says “Key.” It’s a gift you can share with friends as many times as you’d like.


The Purpose of Pre – Orders

All pre-orders will ship AFTER May 25th and BEFORE June 12th!

If you already pre-ordered (“Happy Feet”), we credited you back the $5.00 discount. The credit should be on your credit card statement now. Since last week, we adjusted things so that the $5.00 discount is already reflected by the prices listed in my store when you check out.

The purpose of pre-ordering will help launch the release of my record and book. In doing so, you’ll get both ahead of the release date, and at a discount. As I’ve said before, you are my major-label record deal.

SOLD OUT
Package Deal:
New CD, Book, Community Coffee Sample Pack, and “CTYL 2010” Limited Edition T-Shirt for $30 (plus a small shipping and handling fee of $2 U.S. and $6 Outside U.S.).

There are other pre-ordering options though! Just take a peek!


Cry Till You Laugh
June 22, 2010

This summer, I’ll release a brand new album called “Cry Till You Laugh” on my record label, Wilory Records. We began the project last September. It was originally going to be a jazz record, called (please don’t laugh) “Territown.” There’s no telling how many hours I spent researching the songs I’d cover as well as write, only to find out that the idea of doing an entire record in just one style was not in the cards for me this year. In the end, I let the songs fall in the genre of their own choosing. I love storytelling, politics and songs with a message, and have long since realized, at my soul’s core, that I’m a folk singer. But when I dream, I’m a jazz singer with a big band backing me up. On the days I kick back, I’m in boots, worn-out jeans or overalls, and I play the type of music some call “Americana.” These are the styles you’ll find on my new record. For many of you, this is nothing new, as every record I’ve ever done has hopped around stylistically.

What is different about this recording is that I felt I was able to apply most of the seasoning I’ve learned from years of playing music in the studio while tape was rolling. It also helped that I had some time off last year. I used it to work on my music and reach new directions artistically. I studied Charlie Musselwhite, Norton Buffalo and Mad Cat Ruth, and then applied what I learned from them when I played harp on my record. I used different styles of singing and playing on this record as well, from scatting on “Take Me Places” and “New Orleans,” to the style in which I sang on “Sometimes” and “The Berlin Wall.” I tried new instrumentation, too, writing quite a few of these songs with alternative tunings on my 12 string and hammering out new chord progressions on my keyboard, which is my latest instrument to learn. We also used more harmonies than we have in the past to create a wall of emotion musically. Finally, the songs were chosen or written to come across like a mix CD with a mood, a cohesive vibe, and a positive message.

In addition to the new album, I’ll simultaneously release a book of essays — also called “Cry Till You Laugh.” Some of the essays will be brand new and exclusive to this release, and others will be gathered from the “GoatNotes” and journal entries that I’ve shared via my mailing list and website, but all of them will tie into the songs and themes on my new album — with topics covering the music business, health, family, perseverance, road stories and finding a sense of purpose. My book will also be filled with song lyrics (both new and old), quotes, photos and artwork.

About the Songs & Book

1. Wail Theory (Poems by Dorothy Parker, Arr. Terri Hendrix)
It was fellow Texan songwriter Adam Carroll that loaned me my first Dorothy Parker book. When I first read Dorothy Parker’s “Wail,” the words sung to me. Her piece “Theory” sung to me as well. It then seemed only natural that I merge her two poems with harmonica and call it “Wail Theory.”

2. Slow Down (Terri Hendrix, Lloyd Maines)
I had this half-time chord progression, used in the chorus, for years. I worked out the kinks in this song during sound checks at the Cactus Cafe in Austin, Texas. I brought Lloyd in to help me wrap up these lyrics as I was making an easy subject matter too hard to comprehend.

3. Automatic (Jon Michael Sumler)
It was almost 20 years ago that I ended up with a cassette of one of my all-time favorite songs, “Automatic” by Mike Sumler. I knew, without a doubt, that “Cry Till You Laugh” was the album “Automatic” would fit best on. Somehow, after all these years, I ended up with the original demo of it, and after contacting Mike, found out that no other copy could readily be found. So with shaky hands, I played my cassette version of his tune one last time with it warbling in and out so I could capture it on my iPhone. Sighing with relief that I “had it,” I then ventured into the studio (the very next day) and transferred his song from my iPhone to my project’s hard drive. Shortly after, we played through it a few times as a band and recorded it. I had lived that song for so many years, the rough vocal I recorded that day in the studio ended up being my final take.

In the book, I turned this song into a chapter on what comes “automatic” when you make music your livelihood. This includes things like travel, learning an instrument, writing, maintaining health, and summoning the courage to play in front of an audience.

4. Hand Me Down Blues (Terri Hendrix)
Moods, just like weights, have a gravitational pull. It’s so easy to roll downhill with the force. Some days are an uphill climb. But when things happen in life that I can’t get over or climb, I try to tunnel through instead.

I took the lyric from this song, “Some things you don’t get over, you just get through,” and created a chapter called “Wail Theory” with essays about life’s proverbial “lemons” and “lemonade” and finding a way to learn from both.

5. Roll On (Terri Hendrix)
After playing the Ann Arbor Folk Festival, Lloyd and I were stuck on an interstate in Michigan during a white out. A native Texan, I’d never experienced anything quite like it. As the hours ticked by, we waited it out on the interstate, with the engine off, in the cold, to conserve gas. We had our eyes wide open, but were unable to see anything but white blinding snow pummeling us on I 94.

I based a chapter in my book on this song, along with “Come Tomorrow.” The subject matter embodies perseverance, Mother Nature, and organic gardening and its symbolic relation to living a full life.

6. Einstein’s Brain (Terri Hendrix)
A smile has and always will be my ally. This is one of the reasons why Mickey Mantle’s smile is mentioned in this song. My brain broke when I was about 7 years old. As I get older, it breaks more often. Laughter has proven to be the best medicine. It’s far cheaper and with fewer side effects than pharmaceuticals. Also, unlike health insurance, “laughter” can’t drop you. It picks you up.

In the book, this chapter is all about keeping the Mickey Mantle smile and facing adversity with humor. On my end, I was officially diagnosed with Epilepsy in 1991, but my medical records date back to 1989 and even further back to my childhood. Unfortunately, last year, history repeated itself and I found myself confronting the same issues I had during the recording and release of “The Art of Removing Wallpaper.” This experience has humbled me, and in opening up about my plight, I’ve encountered people with far greater obstacles than my own. They have in turn challenged me to rise above the trivial, scramble up from self-pity, and rather than stare at my feet with a scowl on my face, reach towards the sun: Zippity do da.

7. You Belong In New Orleans (Ike Eichenberg)
Ike wrote this artful piece about all the things that make me like New Orleans. It nails the significance of New Orleans as one of the have-to-go-to places to experience the melting pot of American music at its finest.

8. Sometimes (Terri Hendrix, Lloyd Maines)
We had just landed and boarded a bus and were in transit to pick up our rent car when this melody popped in my head. I can’t remember which state we were in as when I wrote this; it seemed we were on the road all the time and the trips were running together like tears. I kept the lyrics simple about the grace that people have to love you in spite of your faults.

9. The Berlin Wall (Terri Hendrix)
Musically, this was written like one of the many choral pieces I learned when I was studying opera. I had a nightmare, woke up, and charted what I’d dreamt to music. Lyrically, it’s both a metaphor and, literally, about the Berlin Wall, as wherever you laid your head to sleep the night before it was built was, for the most part, where you remained. It’s written from the perspective that wherever there is fear, there’s a wall. And birds, like hope, can make it over the top of the razor wire.

I’m an avid researcher of the deregulation of the media. I’ve written songs about this topic in the past and included their lyrics along with further thoughts on this subject, religion, fear, and love.

10. Hand Me Down Blues Reprise (Terri Hendrix, Lloyd Maines)
Sometimes life happens all at once. For me, music is the soundtrack that keeps life consistent in spite of its inevitable ups and downs. It takes time to sort out matters of the heart. Lloyd came up with the melodic dulcimer part that worked perfect with the music I had written. We merged the two together and with the harmonies to create this reprise.

11. 1000 Times (Terri Hendrix, Lloyd Maines)
I don’t leave the house without my recorder. Lloyd came up with this melody during sound check before a show held in an historic church in Arkansas. The stage was wooden, so when I later played back the guitar part of his that I’d recorded, the “kick drum” was there, too, courtesy of his foot. I wrote to this, took it to him, and we then recorded the song. Lyrically as well as within the writings in my book, my wish was to capture the loved ones I think of and for one reason or another, don’t always call as often as I should.

12. Hula Mary (Terri Hendrix, Lloyd Maines)
We did a show in the Virgin Islands, and aside from Lloyd feeding the iguanas French fries, which you are not supposed to do, we had much in common with the people that we met. One in particular, Hula Mary, ventures into the Blue Moon, a favorite pub and restaurant of the locals, with hula hoop in hand to while away her evenings. I found her unique expression of joyful freedom invigorating. Every town has a local with an independent spirit that makes them shine from within more than most. I took the opportunity to write about these “Freethinkers” and how they light the path for the rest of us.

13. Come Tomorrow (Terri Hendrix)
If you’ve ever taken a free fall into the dark, then you know it’s not a choice place to take up residence. I’ve landed there a few times Once I surfaced, I decided that I didn’t believe in the catchall phrase “forgiveness.” There are some things I think are unforgivable. But I don’t believe in wallowing in the muck, either. I’ll always try to lay down and then move on … come tomorrow.

14. Whatachoice (Terri Hendrix)
As I said, I don’t leave home without my recorder. Because of this, I have a collection of nuggets I’ve picked up on the road from across the country. On this particular night, I started recording because I liked how chipper the guy on the intercom at the drive through menu was, but what I caught instead was Lloyd trying to order for me. I got my way (and my cinnamon roll), but best of all, I got a snippet that has made me and my friends laugh so often over the years, I thought I’d share it with you.

A longtime motto of my label has been “Own Your Own Universe.” I suppose it’s because every time someone tells me “No,” I find a way to do it anyway. Those I work with feel the same way I do about their own work, so we make a good team. I made the “Whatachoice” chapter in the book about the triumphs and pitfalls of running my own label — think of it as a “crash course” in DIY.

15. Take Me Places (Ike Eichenberg, Amy Hall, Ike Eichenberg Music BMI)
The scatting on “New Orleans” and “Take Me Places” took me well over a month to learn correctly. We’d been doing these songs live for years, and they had each made it onto live albums, but we’d never really broken them down and studied them properly in order to master their complicated parts and really do them justice. Musically, these songs surpassed my expectations. I truly feel we went somewhere with this recording that we had never gone before. Just like the stages my music has taken me that I write about in my book.




Links:
Terri Site:
http://www.terrihendrix.com/
CTYL:
http://www.goestores.com/catalog.aspx?Merchant=wiloryrecords&DeptID=268710
Specials: http://www.goestores.com/catalog.aspx?Merchant=wiloryrecords&DeptID=268790
Dates:
http://www.terrihendrix.com/tour.html
Video & Soundbites:
http://www.wiloryrecords.com
Track Credits:
http://www.wiloryrecords.com