This past Tuesday saw the official release of the new Scheerhorn resonator guitar tribute CD, Hornography. The CD is put together by renowned resophonic guitar player, recording engineer and producer, Randy Kohrs.

The brainchild of Jimmy Ross, the CD came about after a discussion between Ross, and Tim Scheerhorn at and IBMA tradeshow. Tim suggested they bring Kohrs onboard to engineer and produce. The resulting project includes nearly 50 musicians, a supporting a cast of bluegrass’ best, and 15 all-star resonator guitarists who all play Scheerhorn instruments.

Each track features a different resonator player, with only Kohrs and Tim Scheerhorn himself making more than one appearance. 17 tracks are presented in total, ranging from bluegrass numbers such as Wheel Hoss (performed by Rob Ickes) to Hot Toddy’s Snake Oil (a dual track tune, the first track consisting of some funny banter in the studio).

If you like good acoustic music, especially of the resonator sort, this CD should be on your Christmas wish list. From beginning to end the recording quality and acoustic tones of the instruments met the expectations I’ve come to have of a Randy Kohrs produced project. The purpose of the project is to showcase the Scheerhorn instruments, and it hits that mark with precision.

Some of the tracks have a more distinct “bluegrass” sound to them, namely Rob Ickes’ Wheel Hoss, Andy Hall’s Fishtail, Jack Ferguson’s Carter’s Blues, and Jimmy Ross’ Turnaround. Other tracks take different directions.

One of the standouts to my ear was Primo Duetto for Reso and Viola by Billy Cardine. This classically styled piece had incredible tone and depth (more…)

Randy Kohrs’ record label, Left of Center Records, is soon to release a new resophonic guitar CD entitled, Hornography.

Hornography serves as a tribute to resophonic guitar luthier, Tim Scheerhorn. Kohrs is joined on the CD by an all star line up of Scheerhorn players.

The CD was recorded at Kohrs’ award winning studio, Slack Key Studio. Each track was produced by the featured musician, each of whom brought their own band to project. Spanning multiple genres, including classical, blues, jazz, and bluegrass, the CD is primarly instrumental (Kohrs contributes the only two vocal cuts) and revolves around instruments build the luthier whose name the project adopts.

Track 1 on the CD is Rob Ickes performing the Monroe classic, Wheel Hoss. Musicians on this cut include: Dave Pomeroy, Ron Block, Andy Leftwich, Adam Steffey, and Aaron McDaris.

Randy tells us the CD will be released before Christmas, and that he will have 200 advance copies available at the upcoming ResoSummit in mid-November.

Players featured on the CD are:

• Randy Kohrs
• Rob Ickes
• Andy Hall
• Justin Moses
• Todd Livingston
• Bruce Bouton
• Billy Cardine
• Scott Vestal ‚Äì playing the only Scheerhorn banjo
• Mike Witcher
• Shannon Hayes ‚Äì playing a rare Scheerhorn acoustic dreadnought guitar
• Lee Hiers
• Jimmy Ross
• Lou Wamp
• Sally Van Meter
• Jack Ferguson
• Tim Scheerhorn himself

Andy Hall’s new solo project, Sound Of The Slide Guitar, is released today on Sugar Hill. As the title suggests, this recording focuses on Andy as a resophonic guitarist and is heavy on original tunes he has written of late.

He is joined by his bandmates in The Infamous Stringdusters for most of the tracks with special guests David Grier, Tim Stafford and Rob Ickes making appearances as well. You can read more about the new CD – including some comments from Andy – in our earlier post about this release.

Sound Of The Slide Guitar is available for download in iTunes or on Andy’s MySpace page, and CD copies can be purchased from Andy at ‘Dusters shows.

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.