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What's the story of First Fruits?

I started playing the guitar in 1969, at the age of six. As soon as I could string the notes together for a whole song, I started playing "Sunday Morning Specials" at church. I can and have played a lot of other music in a lot of other places, but somehow this is the music that always came first. So the idea for the theme and title of my debut CD First Fruits was to me an obvious choice.

Most of my guitar playing "career" has been one of imitation. I could list a bunch of other pickers that I have happily spent countless hours pursuing and stealing from -Chet Atkins of course heading that list.

But an album covering nothing but other players wouldn't be of much interest, so I started reviewing my playlist and looking for ways to "make them mine".

Yes, some of the songs on this album are influenced, in whole or in part, by the likes of Rick Foster, Tommy Jones, Dwayne Friend, Gary Lowry, and others.

But many of the songs I took the time to re-examine, or completely overhaul from top to bottom. The push to do this caused me to really "work" at the guitar more than I ever have. I even got acquainted with yet another tuning (DADGAD, for you pickers) that seems to suit some songs particularly well.

And while I was rethinking arrangements of old standards, I began to tinker with ideas for some originals as well. I hadn't done this very often before, not really believing it was in me. But in the last two years, six new songs came to be, two of which are on this album. One is the title track, First Fruits.

Which means, of course, the other four songs need a place to go, so the next album is already being planned....

 

First Fruits - The Cast...

Jim Deeming - guitar

Bruce Netherton - percussion and drums

Hannah Alkire - cello; www.acousticeidolon.com

Paul Andrews - recording, mixing, engineering, drums, coffee, miracles; www.bridgestudios.net

Jim Wilson - mastering engineer; www.airshowmastering.com

Robin Birdsall - photography, graphic art, CD cover and website design; www.birdsallgraphics.com

Stephanie Deeming - CD liner artwork

 

What's the story behind

The Black Sea Lullaby?

Since 2004 my family and I have made several trips to Ukraine with The Least Of These to work with orphans.

We go to a city called Kerch, on the east tip of the region of Crimea - right on the shore of the Black Sea. It's a beautiful area that has long been a vacation destination for Ukrainians and Russians.

Of the many pictures we've taken on those trips, one means more to me than all the others. It's not a very good shot - taken during a hurried tour of a "kinder garden orphanage". But the image of those rows of tiny beds all in one big room is a vivid reminder of the sad contrast - hundreds of kids who go to bed each night with no one to tuck them in or sing them a lullaby - and yet just a stones throw away is a a beautiful beach on the Black Sea, loaded with families on their summer vacations.

It had been in my mind for a long time to write a song with that picture in mind, just not necessarily for the First Fruits project. However, as the melody began to develop, a refrain from an old familiar song kept making a cameo appearance. It's from "Jesus Loves The Little Children".

So as the song developed, I started to call it "Precious In His Sight". And it began to seem appropriate for First Fruits after all.

I never was able to choose between the two titles, so I kept both.

The Black Sea Lullaby - Precious In His Sight

And now you know the rest of the story...

"First Fruits is a toe-tapping fingerstyle portrait of Sunday Morning favorites, old and new, that will put a smile on your face and make you want to pull your old guitar out from under the bed..."

"Jim's love of the guitar is evident in every track. Whether playing a favorite old hymn, or telling you a story with a new original, he brings together melodies and rhythms that sound like much more than just six strings..."

 

KPOF Radio - AM 910

in Denver Says...

"Thank you for your wonderful CD - we get literally hundreds of CD's yearly, and few of them stand out as being as excellent as yours is...

...When our General Manager was auditioning the CD I was in his office, and we both said, 'Wow!' at the same time!"

 

The Berthoud Recorder Says...

"Listening to his music, it would be easy to assume more than one guitarist is performing the complex layers of sound in his melodies, harmonies and rhythms."

Read the whole article here...

 

First Fruits is the CD of The Month

at "Strings and Beyond"

"Jim's a talented fingerstyle acoustic guitarist..."