Americana Highways is hosting this premiere of Phil Gammage’s song “Between the Tracks” from his upcoming album From Nowhere to Somewhere, which is due to be available on Oct 22.
From Nowhere to Somewhere was recorded at 30 Below Studio in NY; engineered by by Brent McLachlan, Tony Mann, and Phil Gammage, and produced by Tony Mann.
“Between the Tracks” is Phil Gammage on vocals, guitar, and 12-string guitar; Brian Karp on bass; and Michael Fox on drums. With a heavy observational and confessionally poetic songwriting style, Phil Gammage paints broad strokes of a New York dark punk style on this one.
“Between the Tracks” was one of the first songwriting collaborations between myself and Hudson Valley poet David B. Schell. David runs and curates the Green Kill artists space in Kingston, NY. The lyrics are a poem he wrote about the hobo life of the last century. He uses several terms in the poem that are specific to certain names of hobos and the slang they used among themselves… their community had their own secret language that outsiders wouldn’t understand. Names like “Stripper Jack” and “Frog-Faced Sally” were names for actual people. “On the nut” means to be broke. And there are other of these slang terms throughout the song. I loved the imagery of David’s poem the first time I read it, the words evoke a distant world of the past that seems raw and dangerous.
This wasn’t going to be a song with a standard verse/chorus song form, it’s me singing David’s poem over a chord progression. It’s a beautiful thing when music and poetry work so well together. This is one of tracks on the album that features me playing lead guitar on my Stratocaster. Tony added the cool train sound effects at the end, giving the song a cinematic ending.
With the lock down and such there were new challenges in the recording process but there’s some exceptional playing throughout this new album. We’ve got some special guests appearances from Gene Perla (Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Sarah Vaughan) on standup bass and Blues Hall of Fame inductee Greg Holt on fiddle. — Phil Gammage
Here is the pre-sale link:
https://philgammage.bandcamp.com/album/from-nowhere-to-somewhere