"Crooked Road" by Darrell Scott (cover)
 

This is my cover of Darrell Scott's song, "Crooked Road." I find that for me and probably for many of us, his song seems to mirror my own history as well as his. When I sing this song around my family, my daughters always smile at this song. :)

The guitar is my Gerald Sheppard GA Ave Maria, German spruce over BRW.

This is a slightly difficult song for me to do simply because there are a lot of words and a lot of fretting hand position changes going on. Keeping a good, consistent rhythm going while singing on pitch is a bit of a challenge. I always seem to mess up the words somewhere or turn a major pair of notes into a minor pair by missing my finger positions on my left hand.

I am playing these pairs of notes, double stops, using my index finger and my pinky finger on my left, fretting hand. Note that I am purposely lifting my index finger as I move my hand to avoid string squeals. If you slide your index finger over those wound strings you end up with a string squeak fest and it really interferes with the song. ;)

I heard Darrell Scott talking about this song once and his purposeful choice of those "Blackbird"-like shapes on the fretboard. His original version of this song was quite a bit simpler, with G, C, Em, Am, and D chords.

Also, Darrell Scott is a very good flat picker and he uses hybrid picking on this song. I tried his approach some years ago and decided that my hybrid picking is nowhere near good enough for this song, so I started using a modified Travis pick to play this. So, there is a slightly different feel to the song compared to his. Also, I have shortened the song up a little.

Thanks so much for listening! :)

- Glenn

Very nice, and like the recording
That was the first song I ever heard of Darrell's
Since then I have seen him twice...I'm a fan

Hi Glenn, a masterful version, played impressively and sung with conviction. You made it yours.

Thank you.

That was truly a delight to listen to and watch.

+1!! Ah yes, a busy song, so well played, Glenn!! I especially appreciated the interlude at 2:03 in there. Extremely delicate and perfect for the song.

then there's the "I don't need to look at the fret board while I play and sing" factor......how do you manage that??? :D LOL!

Thanks again,
Fred

Thank you, M!
You know, this is close to the first Darrell Scott song I heard; maybe I heard "River Take Me" before this. But this song sure made an impression on me, and I bought the album associated with this song because of it.
Thanks so much for taking the time to comment!

- Glenn

Thank you, Andy! For taking the time to listen and comment!

I do try to make a song my own, though it's always hard to know how successful any of us are at that challenge. Darrell Scott is so good -- such a good player and such a really good, earthy singer -- it's just about impossible to improve on one of his songs. All a person can do is to pay tribute to his music by taking a shot at it. :)

- Glenn

Well, how nice of you! Thank you so much for listening and appreciating my shot at this song. And thanks for taking the time to comment!

- Glenn

Thank you Fred!

Yes, it is a busy song! A lot going on all at once! :)

Regarding the instrumental interlude at 2:03, that was Darrell Scott's idea. Because I am using a slightly different pick compared to Darrell, my playing of this interlude sounds slightly different from Darrell's, but the ideas were most certainly his.

That interlude moves fairly fast, so it's easy to mess that part up. especially as a person moves from concentrating on singing to suddenly concentrating on playing an instrumental solo. Of course, I didn't bother to post the other 50 takes were I messed up there. ;)

Regarding not looking at the fretboard while singing -- how very observant!!! Well here's why that is... I found that while doing the first few takes that if I bowed my head down to see where my fingers were on the fretboard that there was quite a noticeable drop in vocal level. So, I realized, well, I am just going to have to record this looking pretty much straight ahead and I'm going to hope that my fingers go to the right places. :D

When I was 16 years old and spending WAY too much time playing the guitar, my dad got really upset with me, as if I was going to run off and become a professional musician and not really get an education. He actually lectured me several times that very few musicians made a good living. I didn't argue with him -- actually, I had no intention of becoming a professional musician. I just wanted to make music!!!:) But in order to avoid conflicts with my father, I spent a lot of time playing in the dark in a large storage closet with a closed door up on the 3rd floor of this giant house we lived it. While playing in there, I pretended I was blind and just learned to play without being able to see my fingers.

I think the experience was helpful, back there 53 years ago! :D

- Glenn

Glenn,

That's great! There really IS a lot going on in that song. That was my first thought when it ended. You were a busy guy!

Forgive my ignorance... I don't know that tune, so it was really nice to hear your version first. Probably better than Darrell's!

Beautifully played and I always like to hear Gerald's awesome guitar. :)

Keep em coming... what's on tap for tomorrow? :roll:

Hi Kerbie,

Thanks for your thoughts!

Yes, I was busy!:)

Regarding Darrell's version, this is a good example:


It would be pretty hard to be better than that! And what a great voice he has!!

I do especially agree, though: my Sheppard guitar is very, very nice! :)

Thanks for watching and commenting!

- Glenn

Darrell's is a nice version, Glenn, but it ain't got nothin' on yours! :)

Great story about your early years, Glenn.........fascinating, with playing in the dark! It's created rewards these many years later!

Thank you Kerbie! I will accept the compliment! :D :)

- Glenn

Hi Fred,

Yes, that playing in the dark probably did create some rewards in later life. :)

And the good thing is that in the end, my dad stopped worrying about my guitar playing. When I turned 21 and when I was almost finished with my engineering education, my dad took me out in the spring of 1969 and bought me that Martin D-35 that you may have seen me play on some videos. So in the end, it all worked out very well.

- Glenn