Inside Job

I’m not sure exactly which recordings you are referring to. Sundays was recorded in the studio but I believe Lucinda just chose not to include it on the record. In between the RT record and the Sweet Old World record Lucinda signed what they still sometimes call a demo deal with RCA records and recorded 4 or 5 songs for them. Its a long story but the short version is that she demanded to be let go and raised enough of a ruckus to make it happen. How she managed to do that with ownership of the tapes is something only Lucinda could do. These are probably the rarest of her recordings as most people don’t even know about that brief chapter in her recording history. I think all but one of those songs were re-recorded for Sweet Old World. Until very recently the master tapes for all of the RT and the Sweet Old World era recordings were basically missing. But over the past year, in a moment of pure happenstance, we located what appears to be everything from that era, and they were safe and sound. There appears to be multiple versions of several songs and also the original versions of Well Well Well and If Wishes Were Horses. In addition we have a large box of recordings that Lucinda had once possessed but then had gotten separated from and they finally turned up and she now has them again. These appear to be mostly recordings from 1976-1980, pre Ramblin up thru with the original masters of both of Ramblin’ and Happy Woman. Some of these recordings are basically homemade 2-track on old Scotch 1/4″ reel-to-reels and even some things on cassette. When tapes are this old they often have to baked in a special oven and then transferred to a new format. A person who shall remain nameless had these tapes baked about 3-4 yrs ago and then did not transfer them, which makes them even more fragile. But i’m told they can still be salvaged. Any excitement about these recordings should be tempered by the fact that until they are safely transferred it won’t be known what is usable and what is really there. My fingers are crossed that they all survive. There’s a lot of work to do and as a result it will be some time before these recordings see the light of day, if ever.

I’m not sure if it is what’s on the table in the Essence photo, but what she was using up until a year ago was just a basic Panasonic handheld dictaphone. She would just use it to put down rough song ideas -she didn’t really use it to record full demos per se. For example on the new record she had written the lyrics to Plan To Marry and then used the handheld to put down the basic melody so she didn’t lose it.
When she got to the studio she recorded the version thats on the record with the idea that she was showing it to the band. The noise you hear at the very beginning is her writing -making some last minute lyric notes. When she finished it was apparent that something very special had been captured -and though it was tried again a couple of times -including a band version–nothing ever came close. So the album version is literally the first time she ever played the song from beginning to end.

It will be available at all of the digital music stores.

Yes –they do
It is being addressed with ITunes

No apologies necessary- it was just a “for the record” kind if thing

Irah, honey –Lucinda is anxious to see you in Nashville please send me a private message and we’ll get it all set up

The setlist was just Lucinda wanting to change some things up, which she will keep doing as things get added in to the “ready to play list” -nothing to do with the discussions here. With the exception of the new songs which she is loving playing, she really doesn’t consider which album something is on. Its more about how particular group of songs fit together.