The roots music royals recently discussed the new album.
Charlie: “Most of these are more recent songs. We did ‘Two Ships,’ which is off the Heartland Railway record I did. ‘Another Kind of Fine’ is one I wrote a decade ago. The rest of them I wrote specifically for this duet project fairly recently.”
Amanda: “And ‘Fireflies’ is one he wrote a long time ago. It’s really good but he never played it at any shows. I always asked him why he didn’t play it, and he said, ‘Because it’s not one I ever envisioned me singing, it’s one I envisioned a female singing.’ He kept pushing it on me until I finally relented.”
Charlie: “We picked the 10 songs we wanted going in. That’s all we recorded.”
Amanda: “We originally had seven songs and I told Charlie we needed to put three more on there and make it an even 10. He has so many songs it’s ridiculous and I was able to take a big portion of them and turn them into duets. ‘Masochistic Heart’ and ‘The Other Side of Fine’ were originally just songs for him but I split them up into duets. He wrote ‘Call This Home’ to make it 10.”
GETTING REEL
The material on “The King & Queen of Dayton Country” was recorded at Reel Love Recording Company by Patrick Himes, who co-helmed the project with David Payne of local roots-rock outfit the New-Old Fashioned. The Jacksons were joined in the studio by Matt Spaugy (bass), Dan Abbott (harp), Casey Abbott (guitar) and Brian Hoeflich (drums).
Charlie: “We did the first few sessions with Patrick but he was out on the road with Black Jacket Symphony when the last session was booked. It was either work with David or reschedule. I trusted David implicitly so we kept our date. I hadn’t worked with Patrick or David too much at Reel Love but it was a lot of fun. They had a lot of really great ideas to make the album sound better. I trusted their gut and they proved they knew what they were talking about.”
Amanda: “We’ve developed this pretty good friendship with Patrick over the past year, so recording with him had that laidback feeling.”
Charlie: “Everything started with me playing acoustic guitar to a click track and then we laid everything on top of it. I played bass on some of it and Matt Spaugy did the rest. Casey Abbott played all of the lead guitar. We didn’t have any input on what he did. We played the track and he just played it until he was happy with it.”
Amanda: “In the studio, we were like, ‘This is the song, do what feels good.’ We’re real laidback about that. We want to make a nice sounding, professional record but we don’t want to be real strict about anything. We just want it to be what it is, which is a fun hobby.”
Charlie: “Brian Hoeflich came in and did his drums after everything else was already laid down. He listened to it one time, made a couple of notes in a notebook and then played it nearly flawlessly the first time through. It was amazing.”
Amanda: “The only thing that wasn’t pieced together is the vocals. We did those together in the same room. When I have Charlie in front of me, it’s a lot easier for me to know my words and actually come in at the right parts and hit the notes like I’m supposed to.”
“The King & Queen of Dayton Country” is available on streaming services and on CD from Magnaphone Records on July 25.
Contact contributing arts and music writer Don Thrasher at donthrasher100@gmail.com.
WANT TO GO?
Who: Charlie & Amanda Jackson with the Tim Pritchard Revelry and Paul Monnin
Where: Yellow Cab Tavern, 700 E. Fourth St., Dayton
When: 8:30 p.m. Saturday, July 25. Cover charge starts at 7:30 p.m.
Cost: $7 at the door
More info: 937-424-3870 or www.yellowcabtavern.com
Artist info: www.magnaphonerecords.com
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