"Song for a Winter's Night" -- Gordon Lightfoot cover

[Glennwillow]

Hi All,

This is my cover of Gordon Lightfoot's "Song for a Winter's Night." It has been so cold and rainy here in the Pacific Northwest that this song still seems timely.

I have been playing this song for a long time, and I think when I do that I tend to get a little lazy. I know that I tend to change things without even realizing that I'm doing it. I suppose this is the pitfall of making a song one's own.

I did purposely change the intro and instrumental transitions between verses to something different from the original Lightfoot arrangement. I like his original, but for whatever reason, long ago, I came up with something different that just seemed to belong to my version of the song. I don't remember why I changed it, but I am so used to this version that it now sounds right to me.

I also think that I play this song at a slightly slower tempo compared to Gordon Lightfoot.

The guitar is my Gerald Sheppard Grand Auditorium, Ave Maria, which I purchased from Billy Boy on this forum a few years ago. It's a beautiful guitar both visually and in terms of sound, European Spruce over BRW. The strings are light gauge, PB, D'Addario EJ16.

Thanks so much for listening.



- Glenn

[Johan Madsen]

I didn't know that tune, beautiful one and beautiful interpretation ! I knew you were a good guitar player but you do sing very well too!

[GTRGUY005]

Sounds great Glenn.

BTW, I've got some family out in Washington state and it's such a beautiful part of the country. I've spent some time in the Olympic Peninsula and the coast is absolutely stunning.

[Glennwillow]

Originally Posted by Johan Madsen

I didn't know that tune, beautiful one and beautiful interpretation ! I knew you were a good guitar player but you do sing very well too!

Thank you Johan!

I appreciate your thoughts and your listening!

I do try to mix up my songs between those played instrumentally and those that are sung. Thank you for the kind words!

- Glenn

[Glennwillow]

Originally Posted by GTRGUY005

Sounds great Glenn.

BTW, I've got some family out in Washington state and it's such a beautiful part of the country. I've spent some time in the Olympic Peninsula and the coast is absolutely stunning.

Hi Dan,

Thanks for the comments!

And yes, the Olympic Peninsula is a very pretty place. If you click on my YouTube website link below my signature to go to my YouTube Channel, you'll see a photo of the herd of Roosevelt elk that were right out our home's front window, in the pasture across the road from us.

Then again, North America has so many beautiful places. I think there are few parts of this continent that don't have some stunning beauty to help make life just a little more bearable.

- Glenn

[B-Nads]

Great job, Glenn - I'll pour myself a glass of Arberlour later and give a proper listen when the kids are conked out...unless they outlast me ;-).

The playing is very fluid, as always, and your voice suits that song wonderfully.

Very nice Glenn! Beautifully done.

[H165]

Best cover of this song I have heard to date, and I'm a big GL and Youtube fan.

If it's Ok with you to answer, what is the recording setup and setting?

[Glennwillow]

Originally Posted by B-Nads

Great job, Glenn - I'll pour myself a glass of Arberlour later and give a proper listen when the kids are conked out...unless they outlast me ;-).

The playing is very fluid, as always, and your voice suits that song wonderfully.

Hi Brent,

Thank you very much for your comments. The fluidity of the playing is probably connected to my doing this song for close to 50 years! Nothing like practice!!!

The wine and quiet time sounds very good! It is a very mellow song for just that kind of time, I think.

Thank you again!
- Glenn

[Glennwillow]

Originally Posted by J-Doug

Very nice Glenn! Beautifully done.

Thanks so much Doug! I very much appreciate the support!

- Glenn

[Glennwillow]

Originally Posted by H165

Best cover of this song I have heard to date, and I'm a big GL and Youtube fan.

If it's Ok with you to answer, what is the recording setup and setting?

Thanks so much for the kinds words, Brad.

I record videos in my studio, which is a good sized finished and heated room over our garage. I use two Canon video cameras, set for HD recording. I record the audio separately in Steinberg Cubase in my computer. I use a hand clap once the cameras and audio recording has started to synch both audio and video later.

I use 3 microphones. The guitar has two stereo (left-right panned) Rode NT5 small diaphragm condenser mics. I changed out both capsules on these mics to omni-directional capsules which have no proximity effect and which to my ears sound better than the original cardioid capsules. For my voice I use an AudioTechnica AT4050 dual-diaphragm condenser mic. For vocals I use the cardioid pattern; for instrumentals I set the switch to omni pattern to pick up room ambient sound. All mics use fairly old outboard Aphex 107 Tube Essence preamps and those outputs go to my computer interface which is an 8-channel Presonus unit.

I mix the 3 mics down in the computer to Cubase to a stereo wave file at 48khz for video. I edit that file to cut it off right at the beginning of the hand clap. I then transfer the 2 video files to the computer. I then use Adobe Premier Elements for the video programming. I dump each video file into the program on a separate pair of video/audio tracks and clip off the signal at the beginning of the hand clap to the nearest video frame. I then do the fades from one camera to another and the various pans in Adobe Premier Elements. I delete the audio files from the video recordings once I have all tracks synched up because they sound bad compared to the good mics going to Cubase.

If a person had a portable digital recorder with XLR inputs, you could simply dump that wave file into the video editing program and chop off the audio signal at the hand clap just as is done with the video files. So a person does not need to use a computer recording system; I just happen to be set up with one and I am used to using it. I did exactly this (that is, used a portable digital recorder and two outboard mics) recently to video record my daughter singing some Handel at a rehearsal with a church organ and it came out very good.

I hope this all makes sense. Any question, PM me and I will try to help further.

Thanks,
Glenn

[jtrops]

Wow! I'm new to the forum, but I saw the post title and had to give it a look. I too have been playing this song for years, and your version is now my favorite. The transitions make a nice change, and give more depth to it than I've heard before. Something to work on.

I think I can get the guitar part, but unfortunately my voice will never ring like yours.

[islandguitar]

Wonderful Glenn!!! My you are busy these days............and that's very much appreciated!! This is one of my favorite songs, so thanks for that! Do you know the Sarah McLachlan rendition from one of her Christmas CD's?
Keep 'em coming!

[Glennwillow]

Originally Posted by jtrops

Wow! I'm new to the forum, but I saw the post title and had to give it a look. I too have been playing this song for years, and your version is now my favorite. The transitions make a nice change, and give more depth to it than I've heard before. Something to work on.

I think I can get the guitar part, but unfortunately my voice will never ring like yours.

Hi JT,

Well cool! Welcome to the AGF! I hope you like it here!

And thank you so much for listening and commenting. It means a lot for those who take part in this S&T section of the forum to have people willing to provide encouragement!

And I am also very glad to hear that you like the transitions that I added to the song in place of the original progressions that Gordon Lightfoot used.

- Glenn

[Glennwillow]

Originally Posted by islandguitar

Wonderful Glenn!!! My you are busy these days............and that's very much appreciated!! This is one of my favorite songs, so thanks for that! Do you know the Sarah McLachlan rendition from one of her Christmas CD's?
Keep 'em coming!

Hi Fred,

Thank you so much for commenting! How nice that this is one of your favorite songs! My wife told me just yesterday after I made a big fire in the wood stove to add some warmth to the house in this very rainy, chilly weather and then grabbed a guitar and played this song that this was her favorite song. She then asked me why wasn't I recording this and putting it on my YouTube channel? So that's kind of what inspired me to record this.

I had forgotten about the Sarah McLaughlin version of this song. I will go look it up!

I have had more time to record and take part in Show & Tell these days. That started when I retired from being a moderator here fairly recently!

- Glenn