Bisbee Rain

The melody for Bisbee rain was written in in Bisbee, Arizona, a very amazing city. It’s roots were an old mining town, one of the first mining towns in Arizona, at the turn of the 19th century. It was a copper mine with one of its side finds, Bisbee blue turquoise. Bisbee is now an historic site.

The artist for the album and my merch (jaskomusic.com), Cindie Blessing and her husband Chris Blessing, who was the best man in my wedding, live in Bisbee. When Joe and I were visiting them in the mid 90s, their apartment was in Old Bisbee. Since Bisbee is a historic site the residents have to maintain the old mining look of the city on the outside features. Many of the minor’s shacks had tin roofs. It was lightly raining when we were there, kind of a gentle rain. The way the rain hit the tin roof was rhythmic. I grabbed a guitar. The rain inspired the melody. When melodies come you’ve got to be ready for them, you go with them. I tried to capture the ambience of being in an old miner’s shack apartment hearing this rain. Since we were visiting and having fun, it added to the memorable moment, one of the first times of actually spending some time in Bisbee.

When we got back home and I was writing the melody where the harmonica and the bass played together at the end of the guitar solo, we had a funny moment. As the idea was coming to me, I was starting to sing it to myself, getting it into my system. Joe came up the stairs in the studio, playing his harmonica. I was trying to get this melody cemented as it was just coming to me and I just started yelling “stop, stop, stop!” Luckily, he smiled and he stopped. I was able to actually capture that last melody which is one of my favorite little parts, a little bit reminiscent of Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, echoing lines by Victor Wooten and Howard Leavy. I always envisioned this song as a kind of a Flecktones esque song.

I played this song using a Martin classical guitar that I borrowed from a student named Dan Kallen. I doubled the melody with the harp, then went off on my classical guitar chord solo.

The rain sounds were all done with rain sticks, which is not so easy to do to get them to sound like just drizzles and not just one giant storm. It took a little bit of practice and editing to make it sound like authentic rain. But Larry, the amazing, made it happen on all fronts, also knocking out of the park an incredibly responsive conga and shaker part.

Old Bisbee is quite the place with its steep stairsteps and contours, a very art filled and Bohemian type town. We actually buy our coffee from Seth at Old Bisbee roasters even now.