– Charlie's Blog –

The Secret Shopkeeper

by | Mar 2, 2021 | , ,

If you order a Chaise Lounge CD from Amazon or another big retailer, you’ll receive it from a warehouse somewhere. But people who don’t make and sell records for a living are often surprised to learn that the CDs and merch they order via the band’s online store are packed and shipped by yours truly, from a “warehouse” that doubles as my basement. If you also sell your group’s recordings, you can probably picture the shelves and boxes.
Selling CDs is a joy for me. It’s my favorite chore. I love filling orders for fans we have known for years, but I also love it when the buyer has an unfamiliar name. How did they hear of us? Are we in heavy rotation in Muncie this week? I always write a note on the outside of the padded envelope. We jokingly call our fans “Chaise Lounge Nation” and say it’s a small nation, but mighty. Each time I send off a note to a new CD owner, the nation feels just a little bit larger.

A Flurry of Spec Spots

by | Feb 2, 2021 | , ,

For five years or so, I have been affiliated with a company called Score a Score that provides music for TV commercials and indie film projects. I sporadically send them tracks to add to their catalog. It’s done “on spec,” meaning I don’t get paid unless the track is selected for use by one of their filmmaker or advertising agency clients.
Lately, though, in my downtime, I’ve been writing daily pieces for Score a Score — more than 50 in the past two months — and recording the songs in my home studio. Of necessity, the tracks feature me on every instrument…even, occasionally, drums, which I barely play. I’ve discovered that it’s a great way to start my day. If I feel like a rhumba, I write a rhumba. Or if I feel like a lonesome cowboy, I go with that. Most of these pieces will stay in the Score a Score catalog, untouched and un-monetized, but a few have been chosen for use. There’s a fast food chain in New England that is featuring a piece of mine in their commercials this month. A few bright-blue political candidates used my work in their campaign ads in the fall, which I was happy about. I won’t claim that this is the most artistic thing I do, but it has been a great exercise — and it’s the only way my drum skills will ever earn me a penny.

What to Do With Downtime

by | Jan 2, 2021 | , ,

I think about my mother a lot these days. She was a farm girl from Maine with a very no-nonsense approach to life. Once, when I was just starting out in music, I complained to her that I didn’t have enough work. She thought a bit and responded, “When we had downtime on the farm, we would go out to the shed and sharpen all the tools.”
I know that for a lot of people, especially those with small children, there has been precious little downtime since the pandemic began. Others, though, have had the opposite challenge: not enough work to fill the days. For me, it helps to keep my mom’s story in mind. When there’s no work to do, I practice piano. I practice guitar. I write music that nobody asked for. It doesn’t solve every problem, but it helps keep my creative tools sharp.
Hopefully sometime in 2021, after everyone has been vaccinated, we musicians can emerge, blinking, from our woodsheds and get back to the business of making music together. I wish you strength and health as you sharpen your tools until then.
Out Under The Sky by Chaise Lounge

New Album: Out Under the Sky

by | Nov 20, 2020 | ,

We in my jazz band, Chaise Lounge, have been huddled on our bar stools and dreaming about the gigs we wish we could be playing. Luckily, right after our Christmas shows last year, we jumped into the studio and recorded all of our newest holiday songs. We finished most of the work in February, right before everything shut down. All that was left to record were the background vocals from the DMC (the Disinterested Men’s Chorus), which we guys were able to lay down remotely, each in his own quiet house.

Ace engineer Ken Schubert at Cue Recording Studios was able to take all the various tracks, put them together in a martini shaker, and voila! – a really cool new Chaise Lounge Christmas album, our second. Out Under the Sky features a mix of fresh originals like “Trimmin’ the Tree” along with our versions of traditional numbers. Our take on Blind Willie Johnson’s “Soul of a Man” features me on slide guitar and saxophonist Jeff Gray with a searing tenor solo. The CD is being pressed now and will drop on October 12. If you’re in a rush, you can already buy the digital version at our online store.

Choral Commission: I Hold Your Name

by | Oct 25, 2020 | ,

Everything we do right now is colored by our present circumstances. Sometimes, it works out well. I was recently commissioned by the Cantate Chamber Singers and their redoubtable conductor, Victoria Gau, to write a choral work that reflects the current moment. The text for the piece, I Hold Your Name, was commissioned from the poet Adrianna Smith. It was my first opportunity to work with a poet in such an interactive way. Her original libretto was beautiful, and if I asked for an alternate word that might include, say, more long vowels, she was right on top of it. My hope is that I fashioned the music in such a way that all of her lines are clear and understandable. The goal is to have some sort of performance in the spring. If a choir can feel safe singing a public performance, then we’ll know that we are somewhere close to normalcy.

Charlie Barnett: All By His Own Self

On the Folk Charts!

by | Sep 16, 2020 | , ,

So here’s an unexpected development: My new solo album is on the FAI Folk Chart for August! “All By His Own Self” is #17 on the album chart; two songs from the album are on the song chart (“Hold Still” at #16 and “Corinna, Corinna” at #22); and I am #24 on the “Top Artists” chart.

If you’d like to hear selections or buy the album, you can find it at my online store.

New Musical: When We Get There

by | Aug 9, 2020 | ,

I guess we are are in scramble mode, trying to figure out how best to use our creative energy during this Covid time.  I started a new musical in March with two book-writers; Richard Lasser from Seattle and Robert P. Young from Detroit. It is called When We Get There.  It stems from a story I wrote nearly ten years ago, but has been changed and massaged into a new and wonderful piece of theatre by a lot of brilliant work by Robert and Richard. Basically it is a story of four people who drive from New Jersey to march in Selma in what turned out to be “Bloody Sunday” in 1965.  We had a few terrific actors join us for a Zoom table read last week.  We were  fortunate to have Broadway veterans Allison Briner-Dardenne read the part of Rose. Q. Smith played Mary. Erick Pinnick read Terrance and Safiya Harris (pictured) played Dawn.  We learned a ton about our small but mighty show.  Once there is theatre again, this show will be ready!

Film score: Upheaval

by | Jul 15, 2020 | ,

Director Jonathan Gruber recently finished a feature-length documentary that I had a great time scoring. The film, Upheaval, tells the story of the late Israeli politician Menachem Begin — it’s a tough walk through the minefields of Israeli politics and history. Jonathan is such a skilled filmmaker that he makes this scorching subject look easy to tackle. The music, of course, all had to be made using the instruments I can play and record at home, along with synth elements. Once a score is recorded, I usually sit down with the director to review the film scene by scene, but of course we couldn’t do that in person right now. Instead, we shared my screen over Zoom, and I am happy to report that is possibly the very best use of the Zoom platform.

Choral Commission: The Last Seven Words

by | Jul 1, 2020 | ,

Earlier this year, I was commissioned by Michael McCarthy, the Canon of Music at the Washington National Cathedral, to write a choral piece based on the Seven Last Words from the Cross. As you may already know, these are actually phrases, not words: they’re the last seven things Jesus Christ said during the Crucifixion, including “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Whatever your relationship to religion — my own is very distant — these are very beautiful and evocative words to work with, and it was an honor to set them to music. The piece, called The Last Seven Words, is scored for children’s choir, harp, string quartet and chamber organ. The idea was for the Cathedral to take its children’s choir and this piece on tour to Spain and Portugal in March. That tour was cancelled, for obvious reasons, but I hope the piece can reach its audience one day soon.

Charlie Barnett: All By His Own Self

The new CDs are in. Charlie Barnett: All By His Own Self

by | May 21, 2020 | ,

Hard to believe that January was only four months ago. At the end of that month, I played a solo show — my first in decades — in Germantown, Maryland. I was nervous about it, but it went well enough that I quickly booked a few more shows and went into the studio to record the music while I had it under my fingers. Of course, all the subsequent shows were cancelled, but bassist Greg Watkins and I were able to wrap up the recording sessions in the first week of March, and I finished the mix and the mastering remotely. It is a collection of folk songs, spirituals, and singer-songwriter style originals that will be going out to radio stations as a folk album in a few weeks. If you absolutely can’t wait to hear it on your local folk music radio program, you can listen to samples or purchase it here.

Yearly Archives

We value your privacy. Our website uses cookies to enhance your browsing experience and ensure the site functions properly. By continuing to use this site, you acknowledge and accept our use of cookies.

Accept All Accept Required Only