After four and a half days of mixing eighteen tunes Eric Uglum and I are basically finished excepting minor tweaks that come up in the next few days.I’ve known Eric Uglum since the early 1980s when we played a couple of years in a local band together. After that we played for several years in a regional band called Weary Hearts, and then later, briefly, in another band called New Wine. We spent many hours driving across the deserts, through mountains, along the coast, playing festivals and venues from California through British Columbia and on up the Alaska Highway to the Yukon, to Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, and Nashville, usually in his white Volkswagen Scirocco. I remember one drive across the desert when his clutch cable popped out of its sheath. We limped to a convenience store and ate several popsicles, and then Eric duct-taped the sticks to the clutch cable and our trip was back underway. As far as I know it never needed replacing.
Eric has a really solid grasp on what is important in music and what is extraneous, which is incredibly helpful in mixing. He has mixed Sierra Hull’s first record, Secrets, Sean Watkins’ first solo cd, three cds of my own, and many others.
We’ll finish up in the next few days with any tweaks via email and call it done. After that the record goes to Brad Blackwood at Euphonic Masters for mastering.
Gordy Nichols, Rob Ickes, Butch Baldassari, engineer, Ron Block, Stuart Duncan, Eric Uglum, and Mike Bub making Butch's first record in the mid-1980s.
The bus was parked yesterday in the hilly parking lot at the side of the Greek Theatre. The morning had fairly dense cloud cover but thin enough to still allow a lot of sunlight to pass through.
Sound check came and went. I did a quick restring of the main banjo. We are flying out this morning, and the bus I am on is staying out West, so I spent a bunch of time getting all my stuff together and putting it on the bus that is heading to Nashville. Sometimes I am a little overboard on bringing things to do – books, dvds, Vitamix blender, etcetera. In any case, it wasn’t too much stuff, and fit in half a bunk on the other bus. I marked all my bags of stuff with bright green duct tape and a big “RB” in Sharpie.
I met with Josh, my manager, and we talked about some aspects of what we’ll do with the new bluegrass instrumental record. After dinner, I was going through email and got really sleepy – that kind of sleepy that is nearly irresistible. I fell asleep until I heard Barry talking to Willie’s road manager and realized I had a half hour before the show, which gave me just enough time to make green tea, get dressed, and tune.
I always love leaving a tour on a high note, a show where I felt we played well, and last night was one of those nights. The air was cool and clear, the sound was good, the audience appreciative. We had to leave early to go to the airport hotel, so we missed most of Willie’s show.
It’s time to switch gears. Today is the beginning of the end of the production of the bluegrass instrumental record. Ethan and I fly down to Ontario, California, where Eric Uglum will pick us up and take us to his house and studio to mix Hogan’s House of Music in the next four days. After that, my wife and daughter fly out and we visit my Dad and stepmom and siblings for a few days. 
Today I didn’t wake up at the venue. We were out in the central California countryside, down a dirt road, overlooking miles of short brown grasses, blue skies, and oak trees bent and gnarled like 200 year-old men. I had forgotten Alison was going to visit some friends; she had asked if I wanted to come along and bring Ethan, and it had sounded intriguing, but I had declined due to having a lot to do – credits and such for the upcoming bluegrass instrumental record, more content for the website, and learning the John Jorgensen material.
The next stop was the stables, where their hired man, Adam, was saddling horses for us to ride. After ten or fifteen minutes we were ready to go; he let me ride his horse, which was more spirited, and led the way on another. I found Adam interesting to talk to; he spoke of Plato, and Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington, and the history of the area, with the Californios and the Chumash and priests hiding gold. 
I did my usual wake-up-for-no-reason at 4:30am and laid there awake for an hour. You know how sometimes your brain kicks in right away? Mine does that a lot. I decided in the end to read George MacDonald. MacDonald was a Scottish writer who lived from 1824 to 1905, and he wrote novels about characters who were often in some form of spiritual struggle, books and stories for children, theology, and poetry. One would have to go a long way to get to the bottom of George MacDonald.
MacDonald’s works were also a big influence on G.K. Chesterton, J.R.R. Tolkien, Oswald Chambers. Madeleine L’Engle, and E. Nesbit, among many others.
Today was a day off. I woke up in Ventura, near the beach, and went with Ethan and Alison to meet a man who is one of the best in the field of making gear that translates the actual sound of an instrument (voice, guitar, or anything else) into a recording. When it comes to microphones, digital converters, compressors, equalizers, all gear is not created equal. There is bad, good, better, and best – the sound of the instrument is touched by the microphone, the compression, the equalizer, the converters, before it gets recorded, and if those components have dirty hands they can change the feel and sound of what a guitar really sounds like when you stand next to it. In reality, all recording does this – but the best gear translates as accurately as possible. 
Afterwards Ethan and I went back to the bus, which was several blocks away, and got his swim trunks and a towel, then headed to the beach. I didn’t have any, so I stayed dressed in my jeans and shirt, but while I was standing there watching him rush into the waves and body surf I was wondering why in the heck I didn’t leave my wallet and iPhone on the bus so I could get wet, clothes and all. I did roll up my jeans to above my knees to get my feet wet. The feel of wet sand on the feet, and cold, white-foamed waves hitting the shins, the smell of the salt breeze, with the white gulls calling and flying and diving overhead – the Pacific Ocean is always a restful experience.
After that we headed to Whole Foods in Santa Barbara, grabbed food and supplies, and then drove to Paso Robles for the show tomorrow. The drive was sweet – the 101 has a lot of ocean views. 
After a sufficient night of rest I woke up on the bus parked at the fairgrounds here in Costa Mesa. I decided to make hot chocolate since I don’t make it very often. I can quit anytime. When Ethan and I headed to catering, we were glad to find them making omelets (spinach, red pepper, green pepper, tomato, Serrano peppers, salsa, and guacamole) and even better they had a juicer. After falling-to upon our late morning repast of nature’s comestibles, we headed into the fair.
One of my favorite things about a fair is getting to see the things people create. We went into the woodworking hall, and I was pleasantly surprised to find quite a few instruments; there were classical, acoustic, and archtop guitars, a banjo, and a couple hammered dulcimers. Most of the work in that hall had won awards, so it was mostly high-level craftsmanship. The attention to detail was exquisite. There was a full-sized wooden kayak on display; although it was likely a real kayak, usable in the water, there is no way one would take a piece of art like that to bang and dent it in a river. In the corner sat a carved stump, with a three-dimensional cross on top, and a wooden chain meticulously carved, and on each link of the chain were named various sins. The chain was broken by the cross.
In closing, I’ve had 
In contrast with yesterday’s fortunate series of events, today was much more ordinary. It started with waking up way too early for no reason at all. I read for a bit, hopped out of my top bunk, drank a bottle of water, started the hot chocolate, and pulled my laptop out. I’ve got credits to finish up for the new bluegrass instrumental record, liner notes about each song, and other to-do items on the list, so I went through some of those for awhile.
I scored my own dressing room today, so Ethan and I spread out our work environments - for me, laptop, planner, a book on practicing, a journal, and the Tele banjo. For him, his laptop and sketchbook.
The show went well, a cool, humid night. I spent some of the time after our set with the band getting a photo with Willie and the venue folks, and then proceeded to visit with my sister, her husband, my brother, my cousin’s daughter and husband, and their friends for several hours. It’s just after midnight now, and I’m ready to pack up the stuff I’ve scattered on the dressing room counter and get to the bus. Bus call is at 2am because it’s only an hour to Costa Mesa. 
Yesterday my son Ethan flew with me to California. He’ll be with me on the rest of this tour. Today was a show day but since we were only an hour from Smartville, Grass Valley, and Auburn, I wanted to show him a little of the area where I lived from around 8 to 13 years of age. 
You could still see the some of the electrical and other hookups for the campers, peeking through the tall grass. The asphalt lane was still intact, though washed out sometimes on the edges. Near the river the lane made a circle back around to the lower part of the campground. We parked and got out. The second we opened the car doors I breathed in that air, the smell of river water rolling over rocks, of dry moss, of brown grasses, dusty oak trees, and blackberry bushes, and reddish dirt. It gave me chills down my back. It always strikes me how smells can call up such vivid memories and feelings. I saw decrepit picnic tables and remembered when they were in good condition, saw myself sitting on them at 12, playing guitar, reading books. 
The memory of living in a tent for three months by that river when money was tight came back to me. To an adult that sounds like a bad experience, but as a boy I was completely thrilled to live in a tent for months. and I pointed out the spot to Ethan; it was completely overgrown by blackberry bushes, and of course our next move was to eat several handfuls. They were sweeter and much more full of flavor than anything one gets at Costco or places like that. I like taking three or four ripe ones, almost black, and then one that has one unripe side about the color of a raspberry. It adds a sour tang to the sweetness.
We drove down Highway 20 to Smartville, also known as Smartsville. When I lived there, one city limit sign said Smartville and the other one said Smartsville. They changed the name officially in 2008 to Smartsville, but I'll always call it Smartville (that's also the tune that kicks off the new instrumental record). We turned right and headed down the smooth curves of Mooney Flat Road. Off to the left not far down the road were the cliffs and a small lake where my brother John and I would go to fish for catfish. Hydraulic mining years ago had created the cliffs and dug the lake. At ten years old, we would walk up Mooney Flat Road about a mile, slip through the barbed wire fence, and take the deer trails to the lake.
Ethan and I turned onto the street where I had lived, and I parked the car. I was amazed, as with the lane in the campground, at how narrow the street was – it was barely a driveway. There were the same five or six little houses, now in much worse shape but well-lived in, but also much smaller than I remembered. I took a few photos and drove down around the corner to Deer Creek bridge. From there I could see the sloping half-acre backyard we had that jutted right up against the creek, and the creek itself, full of huge boulders, gray, randomly wrinkled or smooth. We had played right under that bridge as boys, on the support that went right down into the creek.
We continued our drive up Mooney Flat Road to Englebright Marina. At 10 or 11 years old, I went to school with Mike Munro, whose parents owned or leased the Marina. I would come down there on my bike, riding the brakes all the way down that winding, steep road. On some days, when few people were on their boats, we would swim from houseboat to houseboat, dive off, swim to another. Or we would canoe, or fish. We once took some boating rope, that thin, nylon sort, I think it was white or yellow, and we were climbing a small cliff, probably 15 feet. I was foolishly wrapping the rope around my hand as I climbed, and as I got to the top I reached for a branch to pull myself up and loosened my grip on the rope just as the branch broke. I went all the way to the bottom as that rope whizzed around my hand and burned my outer layers of skin off. I still have a faint scar about the width of the rope.
Today Alison Krauss put down twin fiddle parts to Stuart Duncan on two tunes - a traditional old-time tune, and an original called Mooney Flat Road. I’m thankful to have been a part of Alison Krauss and Union Station for 25 years. Beautiful work, Alison!
It was the fourth great day at Southern Ground’s studio, the last session for the new bluegrass instrumental record, "Hogan’s House of Music".