Years ago I get a phone call out of the blue from Bobby Sanders of Lockhart Florida. He is the friend of Lynyrd Skynyrd's Ronnie Van Zant who was photographed head to head with Ronnie 3 days before the plane crash back in 1977. Well Bobby had either invited or had a surprise guest at his house, a man by the name of Hugh C. Tomlin. Hugh was from Georgia and he was a blind disc jockey who also wrote songs and performed them on acoustic guitar. I have no idea the details of how he was connected to Bobby or why he was at Bobby's house, but I get this call out of the blue to rush over to Bobby's house with a tape recorder and record Hugh C. Tomlin at his house. Fortunately I had the time to be able to rush over there and do it, but I was not prepared with the proper recording equipment and all I had was a small portable Marantz mono cassette tape recorder with an onboard directional electret condenser microphone. The sound quality of the machine was professional quality no doubt, but it was mainly designed for journalists to record interviews on for news. I don't think it was designed with music recording in mind, but it would work just the same. It was all I had at my house on that day that I could grab and rush over there. When I arrived Hugh was already playing his songs in the living room along with a house full of guests from Bobby's family members, his lovely wife Jessica and cousins and neighbors and friends were all packed in there listening to Hugh. I quickly set up a chair directly in front of Hugh and placed the recorder on a pillow to dampen any noises or vibrations and pointed the directional microphone directly at Hugh slightly tilted up at him. And in doing it this way the microphone was closer to the guitar than his mouth so the mix is heavier on the guitar. If I could have done it differently would have been to use a ladder and place the recorder above Hugh and aimed it down at him bringing the microphone closer to his mouth first so I could have gotten a different blend of voice and guitar than what I did capture on that day, but it turned out pretty clean and clear and balanced for what it is. But what you will hear here is a processed version of that recording run through a Hughes 3D processor that simulates stereo from a mono source. I recorded probably about 20 to 25 songs that day including a couple of retakes of some of them. But I picked out two of my favorite songs to put up on youtube here for your listening enjoyment. Hugh wrote some great songs and it would be really cool if other artists would learn them and take these songs to a full band performance. I'd love to hear that! We have since lost old Hugh C. Tomlin. But his memory lives on in his music and songs and I was very glad to have gotten a call like that and been able to at least capture some of Hugh's incredible talent on tape. And no one else is playing with Hugh. Just him and an acoustic guitar he is playing while also playing drums or percussion on the body of the guitar while he is playing it making it sound like there could be more than one person playing along, but its all Hugh C. Tomlin here. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have. Rest in peace Hugh!
- Күн бұрын
Mirrors Of My Memory By Hugh C. Tomlin 06-08-1996 Lockhart, Florida
- Рет қаралды 120
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