Jethro Easyfields - Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Harmonica, Keyboards
Owen Neighbours - Vocals and Acoustic Guitar
Scott Kern - Bass, Guitars, Steel Guitar, Banjo
Fred Davis - Drums
JJ - Drums on tracks 2, 12 and 13
Produced by Scott Kern
Fairhope Studio - Southport, Indiana
All songs written by Jethro Easyfields and Owen Neighbours
Train a Travelin' written by Owen Neighbours
*Bonus Track - Ghostwriters
Thanks and Winks to all the folks who gave us a Second Chance.
Chubby and Janelle, Dan Welling, Gene Deer, Jerry Blues, Kathy C.,
Beth, Brent, John Wayne Pastor, Donn Smith, Frank Dean, Johnny Ping, Thom Woodard, Mike Younger, Miss Kimmy and Zorba, Ralph Ed, Chris Wolf, Mark Proctor, Mansuper, Sleepy Steve, Coot Crabtree, Stephanie Kern, Luciana Belle, Francie, Shannon, Nate Hammond, Darrin Snyder, Tad, Teresa S., Dave Queisser, Dave Brown, John Jett, Whiskey Chix, the Turners, the Neighbours, the Danglers, the Iarias, the Richardsons, the Boyds and the Sun, Moon and Earth.
Girls and Boys it's a Train a Travelin'...
released June 21, 2024
It was on a hard rail north when suddenly, yet, predictable as heat, a strange detour turned it to the perpendicular. By midnight I had met 12 new friends, and knew I had found a quick home. One stood out above the rest. He had the same presence I had been practicing in my basem*nt for years. He had the same influences,, I could tell by the second song. I approached him like a nervous child , and gave him a book, and sample of some of my songs. I was embarrassed , but Brave. The next time,, he said what he said, and gave me one of his books of songs. Maybe skeptical, but,,, Trust. That is when it started. Colors started making love with black and white after that. There was an unspoken train of communication starting to make noise. It was a commitment to sustain. Yelling at each other face to face, writing in separate rooms, writing across town, across a thousand miles, it was an endless movie, and guess what is coming next? There were times we would be writing a new song for ourselves… and soon , sometimes , realize, this is a JethrOwen song, just like that. Pages of lyrics started falling, flying, floating, from the sky. Forbidden ideas were rising, rolling, and ripping from rivers and dirty earth. When asked what these songs are about or what they mean, I can only explain the half of it. To me it is walking alone in film noir. One is playing out seven and a half days a week and every different scene, always uncomfortable with the same sequence. One is the spookiest song I remember writing ; inspired by two words written by a blind boy grunting. One is magic that happens without plans, and makes me smile while I cry. There is another that may have been written by 13 different visions, and just over three and half minutes. Wickedness blasts through the one we call , “a text song.” I am pretty sure one of the last additions was written in eleven minutes, and then recorded a few hours later. The one that was conceived by two lines, and then later wrote itself, is one to argue about. That one written between three and four AM is a story untold; and no, that whole story will never be told. We were talking after hours at the bar, often, and making up characters and situations where we talked in late shadows As the case sometimes , there were two complete versions of the same, different song, one of these made the cut. The one inspired by a cult movie classic is an idea that made the voice in the song nervous and shaking. There is always the first song written together when we looked at each other,, ‘how about 99 more.’ The strangest song was a prose piece , bored while watching Place in the Sun, and Mutiny on the Bounty, after having to cancel a recording session. Later perfected with form and substance. This is not the 90 songs left on the cutting floor for subsequent bootleg series, but the eleven we initially chose. We wrote the other two on the spot last minute. These are some Songs of blatant debauchery , upside down mortality, odd love, dark casting another actor, light chasing something to nod at, or look twice, laugh, think, and look at weeping differently. No definitions, only interpretations, settled in reckless space and sister time. Between the Everly Brothers, Little Richard, Buddy Holly, and those two books,,,, this is unscripted bravery shaking pens with defiant blind trust,, and then some. I’d cut my hair for this album.
-owen neighbours
