The Story of "Husky Dog"
In February 2015 I started to write some songs on an old 1960s Egmond acoustic guitar which had an action so high that it was best suited for slide guitar. I was very inspired by delta blues and I already enjoyed playing slide and quickly the songs "Too Far", "Crazy Demon", "Why Can't I Love?" and "Husky Dog" came together.
"(Goin' Okay) 'Til Honey Cried" was written about the same time and was basically the ballad of a day that started out well but soon (about 8:45am!) started to go badly. I'd enjoyed performing it live a few times so thought it would be nice to go on the album.
It wasn't until 2017 though that I decided to record the songs and put together a new album. I decided to include a song I'd already recorded entitled "As Long As You Are" which was a song I'd written when I was 17, very much inspired by the Indian influenced music George Harrison wrote and began working on other new songs.
In keeping with the blues feel of the album I wrote "Old Fabric" and "Say To Us". After recording "Say To Us" I felt it had the same feel as another song I'd written called "Psychic Telephone" so I combined the two.
"The 100th Guitar" was originally written in 2014 (on the same day as "Psychic Telephone") for my band Delta Savannah but was never used. I'd always liked it so adapted it slightly and recorded it for "Husky Dog".
"Riding Far" was one of the songs I'd often played in my live sets and had been recorded shortly before I decided to work on the album. It was originally written for a friend on an old voice acting forum to sing as I knew she liked horses.
While I was adding overdubs to the tracks I wanted to try something different. My wife found an old harmonica she had so I thought I'd give it a try. I loved the way it sounded on "(Goin' Okay)..." so tried it on "Psychic Telephone" and "Old Fabric" too.
With the tracks complete I started to think about the album cover. I knew I wanted to call it Husky Dog and wanted a strong image to go with it. I looked for weeks to find a suitable image and eventually found a picture on Instagram that I fell in love with. It was by a fantastic artist Lory Murariu so I contacted her to see if I may license the picture for the album cover. Thankfully she agreed and I was able to release the album in January 2018. Please check out Lory's website lorymurariu.com or give her a 'like' here on Facebook.
