All Wood and Stones

The Story

James Lee on John Batdorf and the Making of All Wood and Stones:

in august of 2003, i got the idea of recording a cd of my favorite rolling stones songs. but i wanted it to be a collaboration, not a solo cd. i began nosing around to try and find someone that i'd like to work with who's singing knocked me out. a mutual friend suggested that i contact john batdorf, as he lived only a few miles away. it was kismet. i hadn't seen him in twenty years and we fell together as easy as if we were always going to make this music.

john is not only a consummate professional, but one of the most talented musicians i know. a great singer and guitar player and he has incredible ears and timing. great fun and it's always challenging to play with him. he is from ohio, but has been out here in california since the late sixties. i met him in 1970. he played and sang on my first two albums for rca.

he had a group called batdorf and rodney on atlantic, geffen and arista, that did acoustic rock music. then he was in a band called silver, after which i lost track of him. it turns out that i was always hearing him but didn't know it. he sang on several jingles that we all heard thru the years. after which he did source music for "touched by an angel."

he and i reconnected fortuitously for the All Wood and Stones project and it was a full collaboration. we sat in the studio and worked out two acoustic guitar arrangements of our favorite stones tunes. we both come from that acoustic rock music ala buffalo springfield, cs&n and the eagles. vocally, i am a little like crosby and john is a little like stephen stills/graham nash. so it was natural that we would be fans of those acoustic guitar bands.

on "last time" and "as tears go by" we wanted another voice to change the texture of the vocal sound and i called timothy b schmit (eagles). he and i have been friends since we played together in st louis when he was in poco, around the time of crazy love. we stayed friends thru the years and he's sung on many of my albums. timothy has never done a solo tour as far as i know. but he does do solo cd's. and he's backed up ringo on one of his tours and dan fogelberg on one of his tours. timothy also wrote "i can't tell you why" with henley and frey. so with timothy on board for some hi vocal parts, we were ready to begin recording.

we tried to keep the essence of each of the songs, tho we felt free to rearrange them based upon our particular gifts and taste. some of the songs are close to the original rolling stones songs, but most are quite a departure. the bottom line is we love these songs and we love playing them. We respect the material and that is clearly evident throughout the recording. We think that this recording will give an even broader appreciation for mick jagger and keith richards songs.

john and i shared the lead vocals and the tracking guitars, and created the background vocal parts. we then called timothy in to add his wonderful tenor on "as tears go by" and "last time." "19th nervous breakdown" is john's tour de force. it was his idea to be a little freer with this one than any of the others and he came in with all the vocal parts laid out. i was utterly blown away.

we then called upon scott breadman (the rippingtons, lindsay buckingham, jose feliciano) to do percussion and ken lyon (evan dando, the lemonheads, the divinyls) to play fretless bass. because ken was on tour, we ended up with four bass players on the cd: ken, colin cameron, john and me. but the bulk of the cd is ken lyon.

after the parts were down, john and i poured over them for weeks, making certain that everything was just as we wanted it. this was the most grueling part of the process, but the result is one of the most wonderful recordings i've ever been associated with. and for those of you who know me, you are fully aware that i've loved them all.

now it was time for us to lay in the solos. i did several and so did john, but i thought that it would be fun to get some other musical voices in here. listening to the tracks, i realized that we needed something swampy and soulful to set the mood, so i called paul barrere of little feat and asked him to do some slide on "satisfaction"--there is no one who plays like paul.  i then asked old friend and remarkable acoustic guitar soloist, laurence juber, (who also did two years with paul mccartney and wings and who now makes fantastic solo guitar cd's) to give us a solo on "paint it black" and my oldest and dearest friend, peter tork of the monkees, two man band and shoe suede blues to play a solo on "let's spend the night together." the results were real magic.

neither john nor i have ever done a recording of someone else's material. more importantly, jagger and richards are two of the greatest rock composers of all time. the stones have always been regarded as a great band, but few have acknowledged how great the mick jagger and keith richards songs are. We love these songs and john and i had a grand time creating All Wood and Stones and we hope that the recording will give you all the same joy that these songs have given us thru the years.