Brother Jon and Frensz - Long Road to Memphis (2022) Hi Res

Over the past 3 or 4 years, I've done a nice job weaseling my way into the Brother Jon Band. What started with a few dates sitting in on saxophone has turned into frequent appearances playing horn, singing along, strumming guitars, and hitting drums. It's been a joyful ride- Jon is one of my favorite musicians to play with, and one of the best friends a person can spend time around.

In the last year, we've really doubled down on our collaborations with each other. Jon has joined up with the newly started Frensz Family Band, and the two of us have also started the new duo that we're presenting here, Brother Jon and Frensz. We created and prepared this act for the Minnesota Blues Society's Road to Memphis competition. Every year, the society sends some local artists on a trip for the International Blues Competition. Jon and I figured we'd try our chances.

As our song states, "some of us won't make it, but we do the best we can." We didn't win the contest, but we did enjoy the experience enough to decide to get some recordings of our little set. We arranged 8 microphones in my basement and played our show again. I wanted to capture the same sound and feel of our performance at the competition, so there are no overdubs, just the natural performances.

Working with Jon has been a real pleasure. He wrote 4 of the 5 tunes for this EP. It was a wonderful experience digging into his songs on the intimate level of acoustic instruments and duo performances. The title track is a brand new song written for the competition, while the other 4 have been featured on our CDs. We aimed to get something fresh out of the arrangements on each tune to create variety with comparison to the original recordings. I'm very pleased with the natural and rootsy vibe that has emerged, as I think it highlights the lyrics and songwriting without having the music get in the way too much- something I often struggle with.