ok. so i have great news. it worked! you guys beseeching our lord seems to be just the thing needed. we got approval for all of the verses for the song! but now there is another issue. there is an intro piece to one of the songs, “be lifted or hope rising” that is titled “soon…” it is a sample of an old black spirituals recording, really a historical documentation more than anything, and we now are waiting for it to be approved. it is out of our hands and in sony music’s. so again i suggest the thinking of happy thoughts and beseechings of our good lord. i mean you absolutely must hear this thing! it is too beautiful to wind up tossed aside. we would be eternally sad if you too could not be moved by these beautifully rich vocalizings!!!!

wow. the last two days have been occupied by elevated stress. the song “i saw the light” as referenced in “the story of marty stuart and the rather understated jacket” seems to have aggravated legal issues that we need resolved rapidly in order to make our release date for the record. we require approval for the additional lyrics that are featured in our recording and this has proven more difficult than seems necessary. i am certainly not one to be conversing persuasively with lawyers, hoping to sway them by our decent intentions, but such has been my lot these last couple of days. so please, everyone think happy thoughts, or if inclined, entreat the good lord in prayer. not that this is the most pressing of issues in the world but it sure would be nice to include all of what we have attempted to capture on the new album.

to preorder “a collision” – www.davidcrowderband.com

The Story of Marty Stuart and The Rather Understated Jacket:

grandparents are the greatest. the way their voice cracks a little. the way everything reminds them of something else that happened a very long time ago. the way they know everything about everything and can fix everything. the way their eyes look the same in the old photographs that they show you. i recently read that the elderly are the most content of any age group and i thought it a shame we have to wait so long to come to grips with ourselves. jason solley, one of the guitar players in our band and whom we refer to as simply “solley”, has one of the most genuinely kind men i’ve ever met for a grandfather. you can feel it in his handshake and his eyes and i suspect that this has always been the case even though i’ve not seen any pictures of him in his younger days. he has been present on numerous evenings that we have been in concert and on one particular occasion, a little over one year ago, he commented to his beloved grandson that, and i quote, “you boys sound wonderful but you should really do a bluegrass number. you know i love bluegrass. it is in fact the superior variety of music.” solley was kind enough to relay his sentiments and, had it come from any source other than a man of such generous heart, we could have easily taken offense. you see we don’t play bluegrass music and in effect he had suggested to his grandson that what we had just offered was indeed music of an inferior variety. i at first dismissed such a request, due to the obvious; no one owning a banjo nor desiring to up to that point. but i began researching the genre if for no other reason than you should never be too hasty in neglecting the advise of your elders. and low and behold i stumbled into the eschatology of bluegrass.

at the age of thirteen marty stuart found himself on the road with lester flatts, a bluegrass legend, and found peers in the likes of roy acuff, ernest tubb, bill monroe and grandpa jones. any friend of lester’s was a friend of his by reasons of proximity. after lester died, the next band he would join would be johnny cash’s. marty has grown into a living history of country music. with an extraordinary solo career melding bluegrass, rockabilly and country into a single amalgamation while building a reputation for his gifted guitar and mandolin skill, his sparkling bejeweled stage attire, and his very large and fabulous hair, he has continued to embody the definitive spirit of what country music is. exactly a week after jason solley had related the sentiments of his grandfather regarding bluegrass music, he again came to me and proclaimed, “we need to have marty stuart help us with the bluegrass song.” i said, “i never said we were doing a bluegrass song.” jason responded, “we should. it’s a superior musical form. and we should get marty stuart to help us.” i said, “well of course we should. but, that would require someone actually knowing marty stuart. i don’t know marty stuart. you don’t know marty stuart. none of us knows marty stuart, not that we are doing a bluegrass tune.” exactly one day later, we walked through the back doors of a performance hall in nashville tn and there was marty stuart, in complete marty glory. he wore a black suit that was aglow in rhinestones sparkling down both sleeves and spanning his back in the shape of a very large cross. his hair was flawless and bigger than mine. he wore shades. now you must be extremely cool to attempt wearing sunglasses indoors and not provoke ridicule and i tell you that his sat so casually i did not even noticed them until later while catching my reflection in them as we stood exchanging phone numbers. i could feel his stare through them and i had the distinct impression that he was sizing me up. trying to make up his mind about something. it would be another year before we were again in the same room as marty but as he shook our hands goodbye and spoke what would be for us a memorable line, “boys in the immortal words of little richard i believe there will be a divine moment when we are all together,” i decided that i should settle on which bluegrass tune we would start learning.

it was a sunday afternoon when i heard my wife yelling from our tv room, “david! this is it! this is the one!!!” i ran from my office to where she was, trying to formulate possibilities as to what could provoke such volume and entered the room to johnny cash singing “i saw the light.” she had both watched and participated in hours and hours of my pouring over bluegrass lyrics and tracing historical threads of song origins and authors and stories surrounding the songs and knew i was currently busy with the search in my office. as johnny sang from the tv i started rattling off information about the song to her. i went on about how the original melody was a tune called “he set me free” and how it was thought that hank williams had borrowed the tune and that it was just the way it was done back then, melodies were interchangeable and fluid things. while i talked johnny stood on stage waving his arms as a large crowd sang along and i knew she was right, this was the one. i called jason. a year later we were in nashville again and it was marty’s voice on the other end of a phone. “boys, meet me at the warehouse,” he said.

“the warehouse” was north of town in hendersonville. he had told us to, “look for the black cadillac,” which i thought was just perfect. what greeted us inside his storage facility was florescent lighting and a wall of what appeared to be show clothes; racks of suits singing with colored piping and gleaming jewels. shelves and shelves of boots. tall boots. short boots. black boots. red boots. boots of every shade of the visable spectrum. and in the corner, stacks and stacks of instrument cases. we began to wander in, drawn by the barrage of shimmering luminescence, when marty said, “not yet boys. first we talk.” that’s when i noticed the circle of chairs properly arranged. and so we sat down and we began to talk. a year’s worth of anticipation for this moment, whatever it was to hold, and what immediately followed was perfectly disappointing. “so you boys like red bull,” he asked? “uh, i guess. yes. it is really tasty,” we responded. “yeah, i like the red bull,” he said. this exchange went on for forty five minutes. a year’s wait to talk about red bull and other equally triteful subjects. looking back i think he was stalling, still trying to make up his mind, deciding whether we were good or bad. that’s what i’ve grown to love about him and his contemporaries. for them every moment is about good and bad. the struggle is visible and real. i think maybe that’s how folks like hank williams and johnny cash could sing about the bottle one second and jesus the next and why hank was able to write one of the most meaningful gospel songs of all time; because every moment was about light and dark and sometimes the dark won but the struggle went on and he knew light would win in the end. then suddenly marty leaned forward, letting his shades drop down his nose just enough for his eyes to catch mine directly, and he said, “david, i’ve got something for you.” with that he got up and made for one of the racks lining the wall. i followed slightly behind him as thoughts began careening in my head of perhaps a jacket with my bejeweled name on it or some knee high boots in orange, and then i thought i heard him muttering something about cinderella.

as he reached the wall of clothes he bent down and pulled a fairly understated suit from the lowest rack. he had that most fantastic grin. taking it off it’s hanger he said, “turn around.” i did. then i most definitely heard the distinct word “cinderella” come from behind me very near my ear as he slid the lightish blue jacket onto me. “boys, cinderella!” he announced as he spun me around to face him. the grin had grown impossibly larger and bore the most complete satisfaction and he was now muttering, “i knew it. i knew it,” while shaking his head. i said, “yeah. wow. fits great. cool. really.” “button it,” he said. i did. he laughed out loud. “cinderella boys. cinderella,” he proclaimed once again as he scurried off to another corner of the room while we stood in a huddle staring at each other. it was obvious to all, that the jacket did indeed fit like a glove and it is also obvious that i am not of the average build, as i am extremely tall and thin, and i will admit that i had up to this point in life not tried on a jacket that fit so well. but this was still all very extremely odd. marty was back from his rummaging about in the corner with what appeared to be a boxed record set. he plopped it down on the table. “that’s this one right here,” he said tapping the cover as we gathered around and leaned in. what i saw sent my heart to my throat. it was an album cover of hank williams, wearing the very jacket i had on. i was having trouble breathing. all of a sudden the jacket felt very tight and heavy. i will never forget the sudden weight of it. in that moment i recalled a television show i had seen a week prior that counted down the top gospel songs of all time. the number two song had been connie smith, marty’s wife, singing “how great thou art” and the number one song of all time had been hank williams’ “i saw the light”. the video footage they showed was of him on stage in this very jacket. i was trying to remember if i had told marty which song we were planning to do. i hadn’t. and i started to stammer to him but he was gone again. “david. come here. i want you to see this,” he said from the other side of the table. he was tapping at something again. i walked around to where he was and leaned over. it was “i saw the light”. it was the original handwriting of hank. these were the words that had formed for the first time on paper. the letters were scrawled and there were misspellings and lines scratched through and then you could distinctly see on paper where things really started to flow. “marty,” i said. i sounded out of breath. “the song we are planning to do is ‘i saw the light’.” he smiled the same smile as i’d seen earlier when he had pushed me away to observe the jacket’s fit, “well i’ll be,” he said. i thought immediately of little richard’s words.

we are going to be posting some information regarding the new cd on our website occasionally, leading up to the release, and i thought it would be fun to post stuff here first. you know, keep it among friends for a bit. so here is the first installment titled “the making of a collision”. hope it is enlightening and enjoyable…

the making of a collision or (3 + 4 = 7)

it all started with a book from the early 60′s acquired by my wife from an antique shop in downtown chicago. that, and a conversation with a very intelligent acquaintance of mine who is currently finishing his phd work in super string theory, and who happened to mention in very whimsical tone one sunny texas afternoon that we were, and i quote, “…walking around in the sky…” he said this while pointing to nothing in particular, “…you see, there is ground and there is sky and we are somewhere in between. we’re walking around in it. our feet are on the ground but….” wait. i’m getting ahead of myself. like i said, it started with a book; “the story of atomic energy” by laura fermi (decd. 1977) who was peace activist and wife of famed physicist enrico fermi, (decd. 1954) with whom the atomic age arrived. the fermi national accelerator laboratory, which is home to the most powerful atom collider in the world, is located just outside of chicago. i found it fascinating that my wife would procure this particular book from a shop in this particular city. the book’s cover is pale green, definitive 60s green if you ask me, with what one would assume to be the representation of an atom in a complimentary 60’s pale yellow set against it. it is the familiar depiction of a nucleus and some number of electrons swirling about. i was immediately enthused by this icon as i have an affinity toward semiotics and symbols and iconography and drew satisfaction that a book about energy had a representation symbolizing energy on it’s cover. no words, just pale yellow on pale green and through symbol i understood that energy was inside. and here is why this simple thing would inspire a collection of songs: this model is improper in it’s depiction of particle matter. we know in fact that electrons do not circle in elliptical paths around a nucleus. and this is the difficulty with symbols. they are never quite proper. they are always a bit broken. and as i held this book in my hands, frozen in the middle of an intersection in downtown chicago, while this inadequate drawing roused simultaneously both hope of discovery and reminiscence of destruction in my chest i thought, “this is the essence of art. we are creating broken containers.” ¶ then came the eschatology of bluegrass. one evening, after hearing our band play in Dallas Texas, the grandfather of one of our guitar players stated, and i quote, “you boys should do a bluegrass number as it is the superior variety of music!” and so it was that we stumbled into this vast genre of song, written, in a religious sense, almost exclusively in regards to the ever after, the sweet-by-and-by, or flying away to glory. i was at first troubled by what seemed a glaringly unbalanced doctrinal depiction of the kingdom of heaven as i have the fear that this approach to christian living has lead many a person’s head into the clouds and allowed for justifications of neglect in bringing the kingdom of heaven into the here and now. then a close friend of mine was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer. it had spread. it was everywhere. liver. brain. lymph nodes… everybody wants to go to heaven. ¶ we settled on “i saw the light” by hank williams. by way of johnny cash. ¶ what i am about to relate is nothing short of miraculous. we met the fabulous marty stuart at the dove awards a year ago. at age thirteen, mandolin protégé marty stuart found himself on the road with bluegrass legend lester flatts and peers in the likes of roy acuff, ernest tubb, bill monroe and grandpa jones. after lester’s death in 1979 the next band he would join was johnny cash’s (decd. 2003). marty is a living history of country music. and there he was backstage wearing a black suit, aglow in rhinestones, sparkling down both sleeves and spanning the back of the jacket in the shape of a very large cross. his hair was flawless and bigger than mine. he wore shades. none of this would have been entirely strange if not for the fact our guitar player, who’s grandfather’s fault this whole bluegrass thing was, had suggested exactly one day prior, “we should get marty stuart to help us with the bluegrass number.” we gathered around a microphone in johnny cash’s cabin and recorded the song with marty just outside of hendersonville tennessee; two of hank’s verses, the one of johnny’s and one of mine. ¶ the rest of “a collision” was recorded in waco texas in the barn behind my house. the barn was built in 1885 by the then waco corner drugstore owner and local alchemist wade morrison. it’s color is the most perfect of faded barn reds, very close in color to that of a dr. pepper can holding the delectable beverage whose origins are mr. morrison’s corner store. local lore has it that this barn was home to morrison’s horse, incidentally named pepper. ¶ we documented the whole process online with weblogs and four (a significant number for us) webcams running 24 hours a day for four weeks. near the end of our tracking i posted an invitation, to all who were tuning in, to join us in the barn for a hoedown and some group singing. and our friends came in cars and planes, from california, tennessee, arkansas, georgia, colorado, and more extraordinary places far and near. i wish you could have been there! there was a bbq smoker in the shape of a pistol 10 feet tall. (the meat goes in the chamber and the smoke comes out of the barrel.) it was true texas culinary indulgence met with ocular and aromatic stimulation. we ate. we laughed. we shook our heads at the distances traveled. and we sang. we sang at the top of our lungs. these good folks sang like they meant it. ¶ for the past two years i have ended most nights in concert with the following statement: “when our depravity meets his divinity it is a beautiful collision.” this recording is about that collision. it is the collision of our fallen state and our maker’s transcendence. it is a rendering of our mortality and eternal life. it is about the tension that exists in the living of life, here, where the sky meets the broken earth. it is about a tsunami in east asia. it is about a sunrise over hiroshima. it is about too many who know intensely what pain the word cancer holds and the words of my friend whispered in my ear, “it’s ok. none of us are getting out of here alive you know.” it is about victory. it is about the joy that comes when blood tests come back and a miracle is announced. it is the hope in a rescue that has come. the hope in a rescue that has found us. and the relentless hope in a greater rescue that is still coming. one that has not yet arrived but is no less present. this music, broken, improper and inadequate in its response is rooted in that hope. the kingdom of heaven is here and now and coming. ¶ “…here it comes, a beautiful collision is happening now.”

so it is the beginning. we have finished. we listened to the final copy of the cd last night at jack’s parents house. they live on the tip of texas. south padre island. we’re playing down here and it was quite a nice thing to have family down here where we could cram into a living room and crank up the bose stereo system. it was just perfect. wish you could have been there. i absolutely can not wait for you to hear it! we posted the cd for pre-sale on our website yesterday. it’s so crazy, 250 people have already bought one! this is the best thing in the world to get to do what i do. to work so hard on something and then i’m reading these names of 250 people and i can’t believe that they are going to get to hear this stuff. i wish you could feel how deep this smile goes into my chest. if you are one of those 250, thank you. you’ll never know what it meant to read your name. anyway, i’m back here in the land of xanga and really looking forward to keeping you in the loop of the release of this recording. i’m praying it is a blessed and wonderfully maddening journey!

this is the last day. of tracking. shane is rolling up cords. actually we are through tracking. since shane is rolling up cords. nothing left to track. but it is still today. the last day. you will not see us anymore for a while. we will be here but you will not see us. it has been fun. really. later we will go over to bwack’s apartment that is downtown. on the 6th floor. of a building located on 6th street. i like that. “i live on 6th street on the 6th floor.” we’re all just kind of sitting around. sad and happy. while shane rolls chords. shane just said, “i remember i put it somewhere. i told chris, ‘this is where i’m putting the lock’. and now i don’t remember. we go through this every time.” “it’s probably where we put the diagram of the truck.” says chris. they don’t know where they put the diagram of the truck. “oh so now it’s my fault?” “no. i’m just sayin that i remember distinctly saying, ‘this is where i’m putting the lock.’ so we would remember.” they don’t remember. we’re all just sitting around. sad and happy. while shane rolls cables. in the book by jonathan safran foer that i told you about, near the beginning of our time together here at the barn, there is a character who has lost the ability to speak. one word at a time. they have left him. the last word he could say was “i”. then nothing. he carries a blank note book around to write things in so people will know what he wants to say. like if he finds himself in a cafe and he wishes to request a bagel he writes on a blank sheet in the notebook, “i would like a bagel please.” but each day the notebook fills up. and he must then turn back through the book that is filled and point to phrases already written. each day a new book. empty. to be filled. his home is filled with books that are filled. he has the word “yes” tatooed on his left palm. he has the word “no” tatooed on his right palm. this saves pages of the empty book. “would you like cream in that?” he displays his right palm. “will that be all?” he displays his left palm. when he is excited and begins to clap it is the sound of yes and no coming together. when it is night and the month is december and there is harsh wind outside and his hands are chilled by the air it is yes and no rubbing together that bring warmth. i am glad that this is the last day of tracking. i am sad that this is the last day of tracking. we’re all just sitting around. while shane rolls chords. sad and happy. yes and no. they are rubbing together. i want to put my hands into yours and say thanks for coming along. this is the last day. shane just said again, “i’m still looking for the lock. i remember saying ‘here is where i’m putting the lock.’ where is the freakin’ lock!?!!?” i have the lock. i don’t want them to go. i want them to go. yes and no. i want you to stay. this has been fun. it is over. happy and sad. this is the end. yes and no. later we will go to bwacks. at the end of the night i will extend my right hand. shane will extend his right hand. they will meet. our right hands clasping. we will do the shake-hug. our right hands will be clasped together shaking. no. our left hands will come around each other as we half hug. embrace. our left hands will pat each others back. yes. our right hands will stay clasped. “thank you.” “thank you.” sad. happy. yes. no.”don’t go.” “but we must.” “but i have the lock.” “why?” “don’t go.” “but we must.” “it is the end?” “it is the beginning.” “of what?” “of everything.” “here is your lock.” “thank you.” “thank you.” “yes.” “no.” “it has been fun.” “happy.” “sad.” “it is the beginning?” “yes.” “so this is it?” “yes. up until now.” “what is coming?” “everything.” “thank you.” thank you.

two days left of tracking. today. and tomorrow.