Artist: Dawn Landes
Hometown: Louisville, Kentucky
Album: Meet Me at the River
Release Date: August 10
Label: Yep Roc Records
In Her Words: “I was lucky enough to work with the legendary producer Fred Foster for my new record. Fred has been making hits for most of his 87 years. Merle Haggard once said, ‘he lives in the songs.’ He does, he’s there in ‘Pretty Woman’ and ‘Me and Bobby McGee’ and Dolly Parton’s first hit, ‘Dumb Blonde.’
I learned so much working with Fred on this record and I’m really proud of it. Some of my favorite lessons were:
* ‘Keep it conversational.’ If you can speak the lyric and it reads, it’s all the morepowerful.
* ‘A great song can be sung by anyone in any style and any meter.’ He learned this from the great publisher Fred Rose, who sat at a piano and played him Hoagy Carmichael’s “Starlight” in its popular form, then in 3/4 time, then in a Western swing style. They all worked.
* ‘The feel is the thing. If you’re in the wrong tempo you won’t have the feel.’ The drummer Eddie Bayers who played on the album has said that Fred sets the best tempos of anybody. I believe it.
We recorded everything in Nashville with the heaviest hitters around: Kyle Lehning, Charlie McCoy, Steve Gibson, Bobby Wood, Eddie Bayers, Russ Pahl, Larry Paxton, Larry Franklin and more.” — Dawn Landes
Photo credit: Shervin Lainez
