In the beginning or this year, Adam Granger was asked to write a score for a play production of Steinbeck's classic novel, Of Mice and Men. Since Adam was a big fan of Steinbeck's work, he immediately accepted the project. With Adam playing guitar live, the play was performed 60 times. This CD is the fruit of that effort.

The most striking attribute to this CD is the sound quality. This is raw guitar at it's finest. The only thing you will hear is Adam playing guitar by himself. If you were to listen and close your eyes you would swear he was right there in the room with you. Adam recorded this in his own studio using one Oktava 419 condenser microphone. He spent almost 100 hours just working on microphone placement, which apparently has paid off. In talking with Adam, he feels the location of the microphone is very critical to the sound quality. He encourages anyone attempting to do a work of this kind, to use one high quality, well placed microphone. The acoustic guitars used in this recording are a TR Santa Cruz and a Taylor 515-C.

Some of the works are very nice slow rolling blues type tunes done in the fingerpicking style. The ones germane to this review are the 6 flatpicked original numbers; my favorite being, "Candy's Waltz". This simple tune is one that sticks in your head and you can't get it out until you sit and play it on the guitar. "Whing Ding" is a more upbeat number which you can also hear on Flatpicking '98 from this magazine. This tune and "Bill Tenner's Reel" have very much of a Norman Blake feel and influence. Salinas River is a slow easy-going strumming piece that would be a great one for the beginning flatpicker. The remaining two tunes are a departure from the others. "Nice Food with Ketchup" is a rowdy rock roots sounding piece and "Curly's Wife" is an anthem played in 12/8 time with a kind of 50's feel.

I would highly recommend this CD to anyone who needs a benchmark for doing this kind of recording. For me personally, this will be in the player at dinner time when guest are over or anytime I want to hear a live acoustic guitar being played in my living room. I think I'll sneak off now and reread Of Mice and Men while I listen to Adam play.

Song List:

Lenny's Tune, Bindle Stiff Blues, Bill Tenner's Reel, The Floozy Dog Blues, This Ain't No Good Place, Candy's Waltz, Bunkhouse Fight, The Steinbeck Rag, The Salinas River, Nice Food with Ketchup, Euchre, Whing Ding, Curley's Wife, Lenny's Tune

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