It’s June. The month we live for up here near 60 degrees north latitude. The long cold dark has given way to the fleeting warmth and 24-hour light of the famous White Nights.
This is a very special White Nights season for me… my 15th as a resident of Tsar Peter’s fortress town. To celebrate, here’s a song that could well be the first ever written for banjo about the St. Petersburg White Nights… I call it NEVA NIGHTS.
LISTEN NOW:
The Neva Nights Story
This tune has been thru several incarnations. My cats have heard them all and like this one best (and they have superb taste). It began with a short chromatic banjo lick (which pops up in the interludes) and the 2 main chords of the verses. I had these for probably 25 years but it was only after moving to St. Petersburg in 1996 that it all fell into the first incarnation of this tune… maybe 6 years later… which attempted to be progressive Bluegrass. And failed. I let it percolate a few years more.
The present version began to gel back in late 2009 when I started working out a concept for a live set with just singing and low-tuned banjo. I recorded the banjo and vocal and maybe should have stopped there. The rest is pretty much ear candy and fooling around in my studio when I should have been sleeping. But I have tried to capture something of my impressions “summer in the city” that’s been my home for 15 years this month (something I could never remotely have imagined no so very long ago). Continue reading »