I was beyond thrilled and excited to have received an email today from Ashley Lewis at Bluegrass Today notifying me that 99 Year Blues, Rock Hearts' first single, debuted on the charts at #14.
The fellas in Rock Hearts are so blessed to be able to play the music we love with the people that we love to play it with. As if it were ordained, God put us all together with a mutual respect for the music, with very similar goals, love for the same material.... as Joe says, "We speak the same musical language."
This story is amazing: Joe asks Ned Luberecki to produce the album, Ned says yes but we should use Stephen Mougin...Joe doesn't know Stephen, but Billy T has known Stephen for 30+ years when Billy met a young 10-year old Stephen at a show he was playing... and upon learning young Stephen was a mandolin player, Billy took the mando from around his neck, handed it to young Stephen and essentially said, "Here kid, play me something." Although I hadn't met Stephen in person, he had demo'ed a tune that my buddy, Rick Lang, and I wrote together, so I was familiar with the abundance of talent he possessed.
After arrangements were made and Stephen and Ned were on board to do produce and engineer our debut album, I called Rick Lang to let him know the news. As it turns out, Rick was sitting next to Stephen in Dark Shadow Studios in TN working on his project.
Shortly thereafter, we were in Nashville recording our debut project, Starry Southern Nights.
We were referred to Claire Ratliff at Laughing Penguin Publicity to work with us on letting people know who we were and what we sounded like. Thank you Claire. Your insight and planning have been spot on!!
We were then referred to Bluegrass Today and had the fortune of working with Ashley Lewis. Simply Awesome!
Then we were referred to Shaye Smith who created our 99 Year Blues lyrical video that has had almost 14k views. Love it Shaye!!
Cathy Day wrote an article about us that was featured in Bluegrass Unlimited. Thanks Cathy for your excellent interview and Bluegrass Unlimited for sharing our story with your readers.
Then a friend of Rick Brodsky's, a very gifted artist, Paul, designed the cover art and layout for the CD. Creative beyond creative!!
Then Rick's talented daughter, Zoie, designed the art work for the single, 99 Year Blues.
And with the help of the very patient folks at CD Baby as well as Airplay Direct, we released this single, 99 Year Blues, and it debuted at #14.
Thanks to all... we are the humble recipients of the amazing talents of this village's membership.... and we anxiously await the opportunity to share more bluegrass with you all!
