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Just A Little (fdm129)

by Chris Anderson

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1.
Can't Be Seen 05:50
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2.
Just A Little 03:11
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3.
Lay Down Your Arms 04:30
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4.
Yesterday's Behind Us 05:04
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5.
Blueberry Jam 05:26
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about

I have been playing music for over 35 years now and, like so many others, I had music in my bloodline. My grandfather and uncle were both jazz trumpeters, my great grandparents played violin and piano, and my other grandfather played guitar and harmonica. My biggest influence, however, was my dad, who had been a guitar player in local bands while in high school. While he never played on a serious level after that, he would still play for a bit every day after work. I was always fascinated by it, often sitting at his feet and watching him strum his Sigma acoustic and sing, usually very quietly. Eventually, after I had become a musician and moved from the drums to the guitar, the knowledge he bestowed upon me was invaluable.

What fascinated me more than the playing was his songwriting. The idea of someone actually making up their own songs completely opened the door to....well, some of the most obsessive behavior ever exhibited by a human being.

On the contrary, my dad was never the most prolific songwriter. He had a few original songs that he would frequently mess around with, and a few more that he tinkered with but probably never finished. That was enough, however, to inspire me to write songs and I remember him helping me with a couple of my early attempts, offering up a line or a chord change or something, while at the same time mentoring my first band, The Minors, teaching us how to play early rock standards like "Louie Louie" and "Jumpin' Jack Flash".

Eventually I sorted out the songwriting thing and went on to compose over 2000 songs, of all sorts, recorded and released on dozens of albums and singles and EPs. All of that can be boiled down to those few songs that my dad wrote.

While going through cassettes, maybe 15 years ago or so, I came across a couple of tapes of those songs. The recording quality was pretty rough but those songs immediately took me back to my childhood. Every so often I would pull our one of those songs and record a version, or work on cleaning up the original recordings.

Recording these songs was something that I had always wanted to do and I am very glad to now have this little EP. Recently, I came across a stack of his lyrics, in my grandmother's basement, and mentioned them to him, to which he replied "I was never much of a songwriter".

That is only because he didn't write all that much. What he did write, however, and especially what he finished, is spectacular. Over 2000 songs in my catalogue and I still don't think I have written one better.

Surely the few songs on those tapes do not represent the entirety of his original output and I would give anything to be able to hear more.

This collection, which I assembled as a Christmas gift in 2020, features my takes on four of his songs. "Lay Down Your Arms" was based on an instrumental that Andrew McCain and I wrote, while in The Minors. He took that idea and ran with it, writing the lyrics and melody and presenting it to the band, which went on to play it a fair bit (it was also performed and recorded by my later band, Guido & The Blowfish). "Can't Be Seen", "Just A Little", and "Yesterday's Behind Us" were all songs that originally appeared on those tapes, as well as in the haze of my memories, and were recorded recently. Lastly, "Blueberry Jam" came about one weekend in 2008 when I was using his basement for recording. I whipped up this jam and called him downstairs to blow some harp on it. That is, to date, the only recording that we have together. I would like to rectify that someday.

Perhaps one of these days I will come across more of his songs, or maybe I will sit down and set some of those recently-discovered lyrics to music. Until then, please enjoy these few selections - this is my source material and I will cherish these songs forever.

-CA, 1/5/21

credits

released February 15, 2021

"produced" by Chris Anderson
Track 1 recorded in The Room, November 2020
Track 2 recorded in The Room, 1/1/21
Track 3 recorded in The Room, summer 2017
Track 4 recorded in The Sidebar, 2013
Track 5 recorded in the basement at Mindful Court, September 2008


CA: acoustic and electric guitars, bass, mandolin, drum programming, percussion, vocals, other shit.


All songs written by Lee Anderson
(c) Lee Anderson / Flying Dachshund Music (BMI)

"Lay Down Your Arms" written by Anderson/Anderson/McCain
"Blueberry Jam" written by Anderson/Anderson



Thanks, Dad.



(p)(c) 2021 Chris Anderson / Flying Dachshund Music. All rights reserved. Thieves will not be seen.

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Chris Anderson Alexandria, Virginia

Chris is a wildly prolific songwriter who has hovered among the outskirts of the music world for over 30 years. On his own label, Flying Dachshund Music, Chris has released 154 CDs, 96 of them being full-length albums. That's just the tip of the iceberg and there are no signs of stopping. Ever.

chrisanderson-earlyfdm.bandcamp.com/music

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