Scott co-wrote half of the album’s 10 cuts with Jenkins, including the rollicking “Back in Tulsa.”
“What I like about this record,” says Scott, “is that Teddy Jack had also spent some time in Austin, so he was ‘Austin-ized’ a little bit, like Brandon. But we took the Austin vibe, what was happening there, and then the West Coast vibe with Pride and Teddy Jack. But it also has Tulsa roots. So it really has a different feel.”
Bridges’s Tulsa connection comes from his dad, Leon Russell. At the time of the recording, notes Pride, “Teddy Jack had leased one of the studios [at Radio Recorders] and he was an in-house resident producer and songwriter. It was like a family there, you know?”
That family feeling is the same thing Pride has been working on since moving back to Tulsa a year ago and opening his own studio. Although Radio Recorders shut down in 2008, Pride has maintained his California connections, so that if he and Explosive need facilities beyond what he has in his home town, he can take what he called, “the two-day trip to Glendale.” That’s where his former Radio Recorders partner, Michael Dumas, co-owns a studio with former Doors guitarist Robby Krieger. Both he and Scott continue to work on new projects with such Tulsa-connected stars as Steve Pryor and Jamie Oldaker, among others.
[pullquote]In this new [recording] paradigm, where everything is auto-tuned and overly processed, people want something real.”[/pullquote]Jenkins, meanwhile, is back in Austin, where he just released another album, Blue Bandana, recorded with yet another Tulsa expat, producer-engineer David Percefull, who has a studio about 45 minutes away from Jenkins’s home. Recorded in a day, Blue Bandana is far from a perfect record, which is exactly what Jenkins and Percefull were going for.
“In this new [recording] paradigm, where everything is auto-tuned and overly processed, people want something real,” Jenkins explains.
And, he adds, his fans are also responding very favorably to the “different” album he recorded nine years ago that’s just now seeing the light of day.
“I’ve recorded a lot of those songs on subsequent records, so people are getting a fresh, different take,” he says. “Pride took some of those songs in such different directions than I did when I produced them, later on. People are getting a kick out of that, and so am I.”
Ed. Note: Both Brandon Jenkins @ Radio Recorders and Blue Bandana are available as digital downloads from iTunes and CD Baby.
