The original idea for my Sensual Musicology album (out next spring) was to include many musical references: Jazz, Blues, Soundtracks, Country, Old Time music, West coast, and so on. This process produced a lot of extra music that didn’t make it on the album. Some of it was just learning or research (that eventually produced tunes that made the cut), other just seemed redundant in the final selection (Perfidia, from my 2019 MFUG EP is an example). One of the parts I wanted to include but I didn’t is a section of covers, code name The Chickenshit sessions: very basic tunes rendered in the simplest possible way. Live microphone recording, no edits, minimal equalizing and a room session feel (I’m just one, so it’s difficult to have a proper jam). Of the long list of songs I wanted to cover, from I’m so lonesome I could cry (Hank Williams) to Ola Belle’s Blues (by the stern and ferocious Ola Belle Reed) I only recorded two demos: Tennessee Waltz and this chicken coop version of Amazing Grace, which someone proclaimed “the most beautiful melody ever written”. There are endless covers of this traditional tune (from bagpipes to bicycle pumps), all beautiful except one (which I will not name because the man is touchy and very rich). Special thanks to Scotty Moore, to whom I stole a guitar lick (from the sublime Elvis version).