HOLDIN’ ON

LINER NOTES: I would like to first thank God in all three persons for allowing me to make this CD. This is my fourth recording of which I am most proud. When you read this, please know that you have in your hand just one more in a long succession of recordings still to come. I really love this stuff. My love for this music certainly shows when I am playing live on stage and I sincerely hope that you can feel this love when you hit ‘Play’.

I feel I feel so very proud of the men and women who have gone before me in this genre called acoustic country blues, delta blues, piedmont style fingerpicking blues, blues altogether and all those great guitar players of other genres who have passed on who expressed themselves through playing and studying the guitar. Their names are way too numerous and diverse to mention here. But I thank God for them.

Further, I feel so very fortunate to have stumbled into music completely by accident just walking home from grade school one fine day on the southside of Chicago in the late 1950’s. (There is no such thing as accidents, part of my future tapped me on my shoulder that afternoon and whispered, “Take your ass across the street and go see that blind man singing and playing that loud shiny guitar over there”.

Second, I would like to thank all of the fine musicians who played on this recording, some of whom I have had the pleasure of playing live with in various clubs, parties and festivals over the course of the past 10 years or so in Chicago.

Third and last, but by no means least, I would like to thank Rick Barnes and his staff at Rax Trax Recording Studio, Chicago. Rick you truly have a gift. Thanks for your many suggestions, your ears and your outstanding musicianship. I’ll be back.

ALBUM CREDITS:
Diamond Jim Greene: vocals and guitars
Greg McDaniel: bass (1, 2, 3, 4)
Tom Ray: bass (7, 12)
Gary Schepers: tuba (5, 8, 11)
Larry Beers: drums (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11,12)
Daryl Couts: piano and Hammond B3 (1, 4), piano (11)
Rick Sherry: harmonica and washboard (2), washboard (5), harmonica (10, 12)
Christopher Walz: piano (3 ,6, 7 )
John Pirrucello: lap / pedal steel guitar (12)
Rick Barnes: mandolin (8, 11), bass and tamboura (10)
Allie Kral: fiddle (8, 11)
Marc “Devilman” Miller: strings (6)
Steve Leinheiser: clarinet (5)
“Stone”: trombone (5)
Felicia Coleman Evans, Roberta Thomas, Armirris Palmore: background vocals (3, 7)

Produced by Rick Barnes and Diamond Jim Greene
Recorded and mixed by Rick Barnes at RaxTrax Studios, Chicago, IL
Mastered by Dan Stout at Colossal Mastering, Chicago, IL
All photography by Kurt Swanson, Soulful Impressions, except the booklet back cover by Paul Natkin, Photo Reserve
Design by Al Brandtner, Brandtner Design, www.brandtnerdesign.com
so very proud of the men and women who have gone before me in this genre called acoustic country blues, delta blues, piedmont st