Hickory Hill…kind of

There was a bluegrass band back in the East Texas town of Overton that Nick and I used to know. These guys had some really awesome songs. They we’re all extremely talented as well. Nick had spoken to the banjo player a while back to see how he would go about getting all the old CD’s Hickory Hill had done. Seems Nick had misplaced or lost all of his, just as I had over the years.

Moving right along…

Nick, Mark, and I all got together to work on some songs today. It has been a long time since we all jammed together. Nick and I talked about how Hickory Hill’s music had influenced us. We wanted to learn some of our favorite HH songs and try to play them. 

So after jamming on everything we did today we decided to try a couple. We started off with Nick on acoustic, Mark on bass, and I on electric guitar. It sounded fine, but was missing that bluegrass feel. We wanted to do a little different style, and we do not claim to be Bluegrass players by any means. None the less, I grabbed up my mandolin. 

We worked on “Cadillac” and “Good times again”, which happen to be written by the late, great,Jimmy Dale Goodwin. We miss Jimmy as much as we do getting to see Hickory Hill play live – and the feeling and inspiration they both gave us. They’re still hitting the road, just not out here in West Texas. These are East Texas boys we’re talking about…they need the shade of pine trees to play. LOL

By the end of the day, we had something we were proud of. Several times we mentioned that old John, Don, and the boys might even be a little proud of us too. 

Nick is going to see if they will allow us to play a couple of their tunes in our little gigs we do. It would be awesome to have those songs heard around here. I need to spend a little more time with the mandolin, since I have never really given it a fair shot until today. I’m sure if I listen to the CD, I’ll be able to pick up a few things from Ronny and his tracks on the CD’s. May not do the songs any justice, but we sure did enjoy playing them.

Anyway, more to come on our playing later! If you like all acoustic music with a bluegrass flavor, then Hickory Hill is you band. Check them out at HickoryHillBand.com or their MySpace site.

Mark, Nick – I had a good time. We’ll do it again soon – we have too…we’re a little rusty. LOL