Happy Friday! Here’s a southern rock jammer to get your weekend going, featuring great guitar from John Tuggle (creator of the awesome website learningguitarnow.com). The song is about the partying lifestyle of old rockers being on the road and how what keeps them going is what kills them.
“I’ve been traveling with a wild man, it’s gonna get me yet, whiskey, women, cigarettes, breaking hearts and taking bets, living harder than the rest, no remorse and no regrets, he puts his soul to the test”
The end of the song has a twist to the story. You’ll have to listen to find out!
Well we’ve come to the end of my My Old Soul album posts. It only took me three months. Unfortunately, my time is a bit stretched these days as I travel the southeast developing solar farms, playing a few gigs here and there and taking care of my 2 1/2 year old twins. Anyway, here it is and just in time. I’m about to release my next musical endeavor already.
“Too Far to Give Up Now” is a fitting end to the album. It’s about looking towards the future and taking some risks along the way. Something I need to heed a little more myself. Thanks for checking out the My Old Soul album! To purchase a copy click on a link below or stream it at all online locations. Thanks for listening!
This song was inspired by an Albert Einstein biography I read. It’s a song about metaphysical and existential questions wrapped around a love song. “What if time doesn’t exist? That means potentially I could be reliving this. If that’s the case I’ll give you a kiss. We could be eternally in bliss.”
I put this song on the album because I like the way the chorus comes in. It almost sounds like a key change but it’s not. “Sometimes I like to think that I might just get away from the little things. But more and more they grow and grow, become much bigger things. I’m left out to debate… seven ways from sunday”. Thanks for listening!
“We’re living, we’re on this planet, find a good song on the radio and jam it”.
It took a while for me to get this one up to my normal levels of jamtronic standards. I was leaning heavily towards wind instruments (flute, french horn and oboe) as I like to do. But it took the addition of the lead guitar to get it to come around. Chris Singleton put some tasty bass on it to get it going as well.
“Philosophy would go right out the window, if we would only be this happy all the time”. Thanks for listening!
Let’s kick the weekend off with a jam! Pump this one up and sing it loud.
“Skyscrapers” is inspired by the #EckhartTolle book A New Earth, which I’ve read (to my newborn kids) or listened to at least five times. The music is inspired by #ManuChao, another favorite who really doesn’t release enough music these days.
I’m on all the instruments except for the killer bass by Chris Singleton. There’s also some cool backing vocals from Kerry Jones, Jeramy Lamanno, John Kell and Adair Cates.
The third song from “My Old Soul” has the classic four on the floor kick drum beat that makes booty shaking a must. Add in some synths, guitars, strings and lyrics questioning life’s struggles and how to sift through them and you’ve got a jam.
“I’ll always be dreaming, if I’m breathing I’m dreaming and one won’t stop before the other”. Thanks for listening!
As I sit here grinding it out at the job again, I can’t help but reflect back on my 20’s when I was a struggling touring musician. Those were good times (or were they). That’s the catch 22 of life and whatever professional route we take ourselves in the pursuit of making a living, are we totally content? I am not blessed with contentment undoubtedly. I need to make that mind shift. Or do I just need to solely be a recording artist with a golf bug which is my ultimate goal. Would I be content then?
#worklifebalance
“They tell me You’ve Got to get a real job and stop living like a slob”
Today marks the beginning of several re-issues from my long musical history. I can’t believe it’s been 10 years since I released ‘Getaway Plans’ on the eve of my departure from Athens, Georgia. In celebration of it’s ten year anniversary, I have remastered and re-imagined the album, changing the song order and adding four new songs that were recorded during the same era.
The album features the fantastic Parakeet Nelson touring band of 2001 – 2004 featuring John Wayne Tuggle, Dwayne Wallace, Dave Brockway and John Kell with special guest Andrej Kurti tearing it up on violin on several songs. The infamous Mike Lowdermilk also makes an appearance on a few of the new added songs.
Umbrella is one of my most enduring songs about turning things around, staying positive and being there for each other. I have sung it at many charity and spiritual events, not to mention many bars too for that matter. Ha! Thanks for listening!
Click to listen to the entire album.
Welcome to Chris Cates.com. I'm an old school independent artist with lots of albums, songs, solar panels etc. This site tries to encapsulate what it is I've been doing since I played my first professional gig at 13. I post a song of the day occasionally from my somewhat excessive original song catalogue and I'm constantly recording new material when I'm not building solar farms, trying to play golf or tennis or taking care of my new twin girls.
