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A new CD by the Red Clay Ramblers' Bland Simpson... 25
years later A quarter of a century after it was recorded, Bland Simpson’s
only solo album hits record stores CHAPEL HILL — Bland Simpson didn’t intend for the album to languish unheard and unreleased for all those years. But some things have to gestate longer than others. And this one — a collection of original songs Simpson recorded at Charlotte’s Reflection Studios with the able assistance of a whole passel of accomplished musicians, including the Red Clay Ramblers and most of the members of Arrogance — took its sweet time. “Follow You All Over the World” makes its appearance in music stores this week — a quarter of a century after Simpson recorded it in 1978. “That was not our goal,” Simpson said with a laugh on Monday. “We didn’t say, ‘Let’s make a record and then wait 25 years to release it.’ “But if you’re going to do different things in the creative arts, you know that not everything you do is going to go straight from the drafting table into circulation. This one took a little longer than usual, but it’s a lot of fun to finally see it out there.” Simpson wears more hats than most. He is, among other things, an assistant professor and director of the Creative Writing Program at UNC; an author who writes both novels and non-fiction about the North Carolina coast; piano player, songwriter and vocalist with the Red Clay Ramblers; and collaborator on a long string of hit stage musicals, including “King Mackerel and the Blues Are Running,” “Diamond Studs” and “Pump Boys and Dinettes.” Back in the spring of 1978, however, most of that lay in the unseen future. Simpson was a songwriter and musician who had released one album — a 1971 work on Columbia Records — and collaborated with Jim Wann on the musicals “Diamond Studs” and “Hot Grog.” Wann had just moved away to New York, and Don Dixon — bassist, vocalist and songwriter for Arrogance who has since become a prominent producer — asked Simpson whether he’d like to come to Charlotte and record another solo album. Simpson was finding himself drawn more and more to writing, both songs and his first efforts at book-length prose. He was working on a draft of a book and on a new musical, and the ideas that would soon become his first novel, “Heart of the Country,” were percolating in his brain. All of that ate into the time and energy he had available to put into performing. But he had a number of songs he’d written that had never been recorded, and he agreed to join Dixon in the studio and put together a collection. “I went first in early February, and we worked on it until early May,” Simpson said. “It was an easy drive, so I would go back and forth. I was down there a lot. We had a lot of good people on board to help out. I was very lucky in that regard.” Both he and Dixon had innumerable connections in the music world, and a host of people climbed aboard the project. Among them were Dixon, Rod Abernathy and Scott Davison of Arrogance; Tommy Thompson, Mike Craver, Bill Hicks, Jack Herrick and Jim Watson of the Red Clay Ramblers; Tommy Goldsmith and Jimbeau Walsh of the Contenders and gospel singer Dottie Peoples. They recorded 10 numbers, all without any guarantee that a studio would pick the record up once it was finished. They did it, as Simpson says, “on spec” — that is, without having lined up a label beforehand. Still, “Follow You All Over the World” almost got there right off the bat. “Dixon just about had it lined up with Warner Brothers,” Simpson said. “The woman in charge of the New York office liked the record. But — and this seems almost quaint now — she was very concerned about one of the lyrics on ‘Follow You All Over the World.’ There’s a line about a couple walking on the beach in Lebanon, and this woman thought there was something too inflammatory about that while Beirut was in flames. I don’t understand why, exactly, but that’s what I was told. “So apparently they were nervous about that. And it was a fairly un-trendy recording in terms of instrumentation and sound. It was kind of idiosyncratic. It wasn’t tied to any of the big categories in music at the time. So, for one reason or another, it didn’t get picked up.” Which turned out, Simpson said, to be in some ways a good thing. “I think the failure to place it confirmed to me that I ought to spend my time concentrating on writing and not worrying about going out and touring and so on,” he said. “The singer-songwriter movement was on; if you wrote the songs, you were supposed to go out and sing them. And I wasn’t so much into that. I loved the writing, and I was learning how to write longer pieces. “If the record had been picked up, there would have been a lot of pressure to go and tour to support it. But since it wasn’t picked up, I put it on the shelf and went on to my other projects.” So the recording sat silent while Simpson went on to write his first book, which was published in 1983, and then his numerous subsequent ones, and he took up a teaching post at UNC. He never did completely shake the performing bug, though; he joined the Ramblers in the late 1980s, and he’s a member of the band to this day. And despite not finding a label, many of the tracks on the record found their way into the world. Marti Jones recorded versions of “Wind in the Trees” and “Follow You All Over the World,” the latter of which became, Simpson said, a sing-along favorite at her shows. Dixon recorded “Jean Harlowe’s Return,” and the Ramblers regularly perform the title track in their live shows. “Marti’s version of ‘Follow You All Over the World’ got a lot of airplay, actually,” Simpson said. “I would get cards and letters, and people would come up to me and go, ‘Are you that guy who wrote that song?’ That was always a nice thing to have happen.” The master of the 1978 sessions eventually made its way, thanks to Dixon, into the hands of Scott Beal at Gaff Records, an independent lable based in Lincolnton. “One of the things Scott was interested in was putting out recordings done by writers,” Simpson said. “Madison Smartt Bell, the novelist, has a record out on Gaff called ‘Forty Words for Fear.’ They’re also putting out a new Arrogance record. “Don played our record, fully done, produced and mixed, for Scott, and he liked it. We re-ordered the songs, and Scott wanted a few more tunes, so we added a couple of additional tracks.” The result, a quarter of a century after most of it was recorded, is “Follow You All Over the World.” It’s a good-natured album, a blend of ballads and up-tempo numbers infused with the easy swing and sway of the coast Simpson loves. “It wasn’t tied to anything going on commercially when we recorded it, and I can’t really say it is any more so now,” he said. “It’s not dissimilar to a lot of the stuff I play now with the Ramblers.” It’s been a long time since Simpson drove down to Charlotte that first day to start working on the record. But there’s something very gratifying, he said, about seeing the project come to completion all these years later. “You know, in the 25 years since Don and I cut that record, I’ve done a fair number of other projects: books, plays, subsequent records with the Ramblers, as well as ‘King Mackerel’ with Don and Jim Wann,” Simpson said. “Even so, the making of the ‘Follow You’ record was extremely rewarding, and having it released now — by a native North Carolina label, no less — is truly special to me, no less so than if it had been released way back then. “It was a very nice surprise when Don called and said, ‘Well, guess what?’ and gave me the news.” Dave Hart can be reached at 932-8744 or dhart@nando.com. |