The Devil and Tom Walker, by Half Deaf Clatch

The Devil and Tom Walker

by Half Deaf Clatch

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Carsten Pieper Another charming side project, this time its rather literary than cinematic blues as this is a kind of rendition of the Faustian short story "The Devil and Tom Walker" by Irving Washington which is in the public domain, so I should read that up ;-) Favorite track: Part Two - The Devil And The Deal.

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It's Bandcamp Friday, so here's another special release. A musical adaptation of Washington Irving's classic short story 'The Devil and Tom Walker'. Download includes PDF lyric card.

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Homemade CD with four panel A5 lyric card
Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
Home produced CDr, with a cover printed on recycled art card in a plastic wallet. Comes with a full colour four panel A5 lyric card. Limited to just 50 signed and numbered copies.

Includes unlimited streaming of The Devil and Tom Walker via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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	1.	Part One - The Miserly Tom Walker 03:34
	2.	Part Two - The Devil And The Deal 11:23
	3.	Interlude - Respite From The Gloom 01:19
	4.	Part Three - The Demise Of Mrs Walker 06:42
	5.	Part Four - The Devil And His Due 07:00

about

When I decided to adapt this classic short story for Bandcamp Friday I really had no idea what a huge undertaking it would be, in hindsight I should have saved it for a 'proper release', but here we are after three weeks of constant writing, composing and recording, on very little sleep. But it was totally worth it.

'The Devil and Tom Walker' is a typically Faustian tale, one of many over the years. And nothing speaks to a Blues fan more than a good old 'selling your soul to the Devil' kind of story, although Washington Irving wrote this one 200 years ago, it still makes great modern day storytelling fodder.

I tried to keep the salient points of the plot in the lyrics, but in true adaptation style I had to leave a lot out too, this is a kind of retelling in my own words, with a few choice quotes from the actual story thrown in for good measure.

This isn't a collection of verse/bridge/chorus/middle eight/solo kind of songs, think of it as more of a musical vehicle for the lyrics, the music underpins and moves the story forward, there's recurring themes, all the parts are connected in some way, but the main focus is on the words. I did think of narrating it rather than 'sing', but quickly gave that up as a very bad idea. To this end the vocal is a little louder in the mix than I normally have it, just to make things a little clearer. It's supposed to be listened to in order, obviously. And I don't think the songs 'work' on their own, it's better listened to as a whole.

The guitar and vocals were recorded using vacuum tube pre-amps, and done in one take. The strings are Spitfire Audio 'total performance' VST instruments that I played on keyboard, assigning dynamics, vibrato and expression to separate CC midi controller sliders and then playing the parts live. Admittedly not as good having real violin, cello and contrabass on it, but time and other factors dictated the instrumentation. Namely it would take me a month or two of practice on cello to play some of the parts, I don't own a contrabass, and I can't play the violin. Although I can score all the parts, session players are expensive, and I'm practically giving this away, so VST it is haha.

The whole thing was mastered in analogue using outboard EQ and compressors, I wanted it to sound raw and gritty even though some of the instruments are VST, so I pushed the vacuum tubes hard on this one.

credits

released September 1, 2023

All music (and lyrics adapted from the story) written, performed, recorded, mixed and mastered by A D McLatchie

The cover painting is by John Quidor and is a scene from the original story. The painting and Washington Irving's short story are both in Public Domain.

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about

Speak Up Recordings UK

Independent label for the recording projects of Andrew McLatchie (aka Half Deaf Clatch). Slightly strange musicianer. Eleven Time British Blues Award Finalist 2013 - 2016
Six Time UK Blues Award Finalist 2018 - 2022

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