The Steel Guitar Forum

Hi folks... this is a copy of an old "bar chatter" post, for those original opinions and other replys, see
http://steelguitarforum.com/Forum1/HTML/007076.html

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If you don't have it, tell Santa... What a nice piece of work. "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" just slays me! A playful, jazzy treatment with killer speed pickin'! Jeez, I wish I could block so clean (I'm working on it boss! {to my well known teacher who reads but doesn't post}). Same goes for "Jingle Bells", 220 MPH!. The more ballad-like (slower?) tunes are beautifully layered with several steel tracks and done very tastefully (go figure?).
I have no idea when the CD was made. No date anywhere that I can find.

The coolest thing for me personally is that Paul did it in his home studio and takes full credit for "Engineering mistakes" (no mastering engineer listed, was it PF too?). And perhaps even cooler is the equipment list, which closes with; "No digital or analog effects were used on this CD. Pure Steel and Amplification". I unplugged my rack the same day. Now I'm going from the Mullen direct to NV400 (but I might miss that delay).

Anyway, great Christmas CD Paul.

Regards, -Dave


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Mullen (See! No "S") D-10 <font size=-1>
<a href=http://home.earthlink.net/~davehorch/music>Photo page</a> </font>

I agree. This is a wonderful CD. If you don't have it, you should. Here's the review I wrote for SGW whe the CD was first released last year.
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Paul Franklin- The Christmas Collection (Stiguitar records 712 May Drive, Madison TN 37116)

Some things are a given. It goes without saying that a new Paul Franklin album is going to be good, but even with Paul's history of making fine recordings, this CD comes as something of a surprise.

This CD represents a quantum leap for Paul, not as a player, (he can't get any better, I mean how do you improve on perfection?), but as an artist. For the first time we hear Paul arranging the music and playing duets with himself.

In the past Paul's recordings have featured other musicians taking rides. Not so here. There are other musicians, playing acoustic guitar, bass, drums, and keyboards, but they only provide accompaniments. All the music "out front" is played on the steel.

And what great playing it is. Paul is playing so well and doing such great things that most of us upon listening to this CD will just stand there grinning in wonderment. There are players who play fast simply to show off their speed and technical prowess. Paul uses his phenomenal technique to create a series of outstanding performances of traditional Christmas music. True, the technical quality of his playing is so far ahead of the rest of us as to leave us breathless, and but unlike that of some other players, Paul's technical wizardry is always subservient to the music. His version of Deck the Halls is a tour de force, yet all the hot pickin' never gets in the way of the tune itself. His variations always compliment the tunes and he never gets carried away. Even his jazz version of Santa Clause is Coming To Town remains faithful to the original tune without ever deteriorating into a bunch of meaningless scale patterns.

As I mentioned, This CD features Paul playing duets with himself. Now a lot of players listen to steel guitar recordings with the idea of learning the material. Aside from the fact that most of us are incapable of playing as fast and clean as Paul, the fact that there are multiple parts here, make copying the exact arrangements impossible.

Nevertheless, there is a treasure of ideas here and those who want to improve their skills will still find much to learn from. My personal feeling is that this CD is so good I want to just listen to it for pure pleasure without having to think about how he (or rather how I) could play everything.

Unlike his previous recordings this was done in his home studio. (Paul credits himself for engineering mistakes.) Recording this way means Paul didn't have to watch the clock and could take his time to get everything exactly just the way he wanted it.

He got everything just the way we want it too.

By purchasing his own equipment Paul now has the capacity to make lots more recordings. Let's hope he does.

This album is one of my all-time favourites. I listen to it at least 3 times a year. To my taste, it transcends the "Christmas music" category. It's a masterpiece of style, tone, taste, technique, etc, etc.

BTW, Mike, I don't know if I'm misreading your post about "..released last year.." but I got my copy for Christmas '97


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Don Walters
Carter D-10, 8p/6k
Session 500 with Lemay Mod

It is superb! It is amazing how tunes such as "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" and "What Child is This" are both done on the C6 neck ONLY! Wow! My initial guess would have been E9.

Frank

It was 1997 -- I stuffed a copy of a forum post inside the case. It's from Nov. 21, 1997 and contains Paul's description of which guitar and amp were used on each cut.

I'm 99% sure I bought it the first year it became available.

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HagFan

Ooooops,

Wwll you know they say 3 things happen when you get older. The first is that your memory goes, and I forget what the other 2 are.

It's still a great CD, regardless of what year is was released.

Mike! Excellent review.

You wrote: My personal feeling is that this CD is so good I want to just listen to it for pure pleasure without having to think about how he (or rather how I) could play everything.

My thoughts exactly. (But I might try to cop a few licks here and there anyway - like that's possible...)

Best, -Dave


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Mullen (See! No "S") D-10 <font size=-1>
<a href=http://home.earthlink.net/~davehorch/music>Photo page</a> </font>

<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Dave Horch on 07 December 2001 at 11:20 PM.]</p></FONT><FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Dave Horch on 07 December 2001 at 11:22 PM.]</p></FONT>