Andy Hall, busy resophonic guitarist with The Infamous Stringdusters, recently found time to cut a solo project of his own between recording and touring with his band mates.

Sound Of The Slide Guitar features 11 tracks, 8 of which are original pieces Hall wrote for this project. The Dusters serve as the core band, but four tracks are cut as duets, performed with David Grier and Tim Stafford on guitar, Jesse Cobb on mandolin, and Rob Ickes on dobro.

Andy said that he had wanted to complete this recording quickly, reflecting his writing and playing over a certain period of time. Unlike his first solo project, Redwing – which took almost two years to finish – this one was recorded in four months at Hall’s home studio.

Dusters fans will recognize Deep Elem Blues, which Andy sings with the band on their live shows, and Norman Blake fans will enjoy hearing the reso-version of Green Light On The Southern and Bony Crossing The Alps which closes the CD.

“I chose the title, ‘The Sound Of the Slide Guitar,’ because I heard so many people use that phrase. Like ‘I love the…..’ or ‘ ……….is a haunting sound.’ I had heard it used so much, I thought it would be an appropriate title. Seems to be pretty accurate in describing the record!

I used my mahogany Meredith guitar on a lot of the tracks and my my Koa Harper in D tuning for C-Bops. For a few of the softer tunes, I used my Hawaiian. There’s some bluesy stuff too, like Deep Elem, where I used an old style 2 square neck tri-cone.

I wanted to get some different sounds on there, as per the album title.”

Sound Of The Slide Guitar will be released on January 22 from Sugar Hill, but is available for download purchase now on Andy’s MySpace page, where you can hear audio for several tunes. It will appear in iTunes on the 22nd, and will be available for CD purchase from Andy’s site at that time as well.

UPDATE 1:55 p.m. – Andy will be a guest on Cindy Baucom’s Knee Deep In Bluegrass show this week, talking with Cindy about the new CD.