Twirlie Awards: #30 on the Top Albums and
“This Time” #31 on the Top 40 Songs of 2018
Twirl Radio/Woody Radio (DJ Mike Lidskin, KUBU-FM, Sacramento)
Songs From Third Act is a stunning, sad, funny, sexy and lovely collection of songs. Not your typical folk album, it goes beyond a generic genre label with the same intense introspection, empathy, honesty and craft that Townes Van Zandt defined and dared anyone to emulate.
Adam Dunbar
Canadian Beats
Songs from the Third Act is a bildungsroman. It is recollections, reflections, tales of lives come and gone, of hardship and heartbreak, but also of strength and triumph. Here Hogan proves that it is really never too late for anyone. And with this newfound confidence, hopefully there are more acts to come.
Jamie Robash
Divide + Conquer
Download it from ITunes.
Discs available direct from the artist and in-store at Neptoon Records in Vancouver BC.
Click on the titles for audio samples and lyrics.
All The King’s Horses
Charlie Hase : Weissenborn slide guitar
Darryl Havers : piano + accordion
Nolan Murray : mandolin
Brent Gubbels : bass
Shawn Soucy : drums
Recorded 2017
Spirit Studio * Surrey BC
Co-Producer/Engineer: Shawn Soucy
Vocal tracks recorded at Wizard Sound Services * Vancouver BC
Engineer: Brian Campbell
I started writing this in 1984 after a trip to Dawson City for a wonderful folk festival. There’s something truly magical about summer evenings that go on forever in the Land of the Midnight Sun, especially when you’re sitting on a floating dock where two legendary rivers converge. The lyrics speak to the trouble an over-eager heart can get into with the wrong person. (This girl is in wayyy over her head!) The song languished in my tune bag for a really long time before I finally wrote a bridge for it just before we recorded it. I really love the way this one turned out.
Charlie Hase : pedal steel guitar
Darryl Havers : piano
Brent Gubbels : bass
Shawn Soucy : drums
Recorded 2017
Spirit Studio * Surrey BC
Co-producer/Engineer: Shawn Soucy
Vocal track recorded at Wizard Sound Services * Vancouver BC
Engineer: Brian Campbell
This is about a classic laundromat at the corner of 4th and Bayswater in Kitsilano, a social hub for hippies back in the 1970s. During my many visits I became quite fascinated by the guy who worked there. He was a bit “off” and probably what we would now call “on the spectrum.” He and his mother ran the place like a well-oiled machine, and I often wondered what his life must be like, so I wrote a song about him. The lyrics are a bit saucy, and the band took that and ran with it…
Charlie Hase : pedal steel guitar
Brent Gubbels : bass
Shawn Soucy : drums
Recorded 2016/2017
Spirit Studio * Surrey BC
Co-producer/Engineer: Shawn Soucy
Vocal track recorded at Wizard Sound Services * Vancouver BC
Engineer: Brian Campbell
This song has been a real problem child. It went through several rounds of critiques in Nashville over several years. After a particularly brutal session where it got shot down for having a weak chorus, I went home to tinker with it some more. Eventually the reworked chorus started growing on me and I was finally happy with it. It’s based on the true story of Terry Lynn Barton and the Hayman Fire in Colorado in 2002. Barton’s story really resonated with me and I immediately thought it would make a great song. As a songwriter you just never know when inspiration is going to strike. Click on the links to read the story.
Also check out Charlie’s psychedelic Middle Eastern outro. : )
Charlie Hase : pedal steel guitar
Darryl Havers : piano
Brent Gubbels : bass
Shawn Soucy : congas
Recorded 2016/2017
Spirit Studio * Surrey BC
Co-producer/Engineer: Shawn Soucy
Vocal tracks recorded at Wizard Sound Services * Vancouver BC
Engineer: Brian Campbell
This is another song that took a long time to finish because it was so personal. It’s about being with someone who is slipping away and bearing witness to all the complicated emotions that come with that. Charlie Frizzell became one of my oldest and dearest friends after getting hitched to my best friend Polly in the early 1970s. They met in Berkeley after he migrated from Massachusetts, driving out west with Mimi Farina. Charlie was a talented photographer and entertaining raconteur, and boy did he have some great stories from hanging out in the east coast folk music scene. Charlie was one of the sweetest souls you’d ever want to meet, and he had the most spectacular memorial party I’ve ever had the privilege to attend. Everyone went home with a few of his ashes embedded in a custom-made marble by Dick Marquis, master glass blower of Whidbey Island.
Charlie Hase : pedal steel + Weissenborn slide guitar
Brent Gubbels : bass
Shawn Soucy : drums
Recorded 2016/2017
Spirit Studio * Surrey BC
Co-producer/Engineer: Shawn Soucy
Vocal tracks recorded at Wizard Sound Services * Vancouver BC
Engineer: Brian Campbell
Sometimes you take a song into the studio and it comes out the other end sounding like nothing you had imagined. This Time started life as a quiet little fingerpicking tune, but once we fired up the rhythm section behind it and Charlie got the pedal steel driving the groove, it took on a whole new identity. It’s a tale of woe on the rodeo circuit, about a cowboy, some hard luck, and a hard woman who takes him for everything he’s got. This is one of those characters who comes alive in a song, and if you don’t feel sorry for him by the end of this track, what can I say… And hey, we made a little video for it. Click here to watch.
Charlie Hase : pedal steel guitar
Darryl Havers : piano
Nolan Murray : fiddle
Brent Gubbels : bass
Shawn Soucy : drums
Recorded 2017
Spirit Studio * Surrey BC
Co-producer/Engineer: Shawn Soucy
Vocal track recorded at Wizard Sound Services * Vancouver BC
Engineer: Brian Campbell
This is a tune that arrived all at once, in a seedy hotel room in Revelstoke BC at the tail end of a miserable few weeks on the road. I started playing it at coffeehouse gigs and people seemed to love it. Picture a tired band at the end of a six-night gig. It’s two in the morning, the air is thick with cigarette smoke, the drummer is stifling a yawn, and the piano is really out of tune. Two or three really drunk couples are careening around the dance floor, someone wants to hear Me and Bobby McGee, the waiters are slamming glasses into the dishwasher, and the bartender is announcing last call. If you listen all the way to the end you’ll hear some bar sounds and a Canada/Russia hockey game from 1966. Good times!
Charlie Hase : pedal steel guitar
Brent Gubbels : bass
Recorded 2017 at Wizard Sound Services * Vancouver BC
Co-Producer/Engineer: Brian Campbell
This song is another one that’s been through many changes over the years. I had a demo done in Nashville in the 90s, and when I started playing it live I realized it was much more suited to a stripped-down type of presentation. So here it is with just an acoustic bass and some haunting pedal steel to let the sad story stand up and speak for itself. This one is a weeper!
Charlie Hase : pedal steel guitar
Brent Gubbels : bass
Recorded 2017 at Wizard Sound Services * Vancouver BC
Co-Producer/Engineer: Brian Campbell
Another song that arrived out of nowhere without explanation one day. Years later it was suddenly the soundtrack to my life. Sometimes the best medicine is just a walk on the beach…
Charlie Hase : pedal steel guitar
Brent Gubbels : bass
Shawn Soucy : drums
Recorded 2017 at Wizard Sound Services * Vancouver BC
Co-Producer/Engineer: Brian Campbell
Drum tracks recorded at Spirit Studio * Surrey BC
Engineer: Shawn Soucy
Probably my favourite breakup song of all time from the master of songwriting, John Prine. I’ve always had a handful of his tunes in my live repertoire, and decided to include this one in the collection just because…
Charlie Hase : dobro
Recorded 2017 at Wizard Sound Services * Vancouver BC
Co-Producer/Engineer: Brian Campbell
Pinto Pony is one of the first songs I ever wrote, another tale of cowboy life. I cut my teeth on Roy Rogers, serial westerns on TV, and John Wayne double features at the Hollywood Theatre. For my fourth birthday I got sixguns, chaps, a badge, and a red hat with a whistle, and I was in heaven kicking up dust with my imaginary pony in the back alleys. I played this tune for a mentor in Nashville, on a ranch, in a tack room, and it made her cry. Enjoy!
Charlie Hase : pedal steel guitar
Darryl Havers : piano
Brent Gubbels : bass
Recorded 2017
Spirit Studio * Surrey BC
Co-Producer/Engineer: Shawn Soucy
Vocal tracks recorded at Wizard Sound Services * Vancouver BC
Engineer: Brian Campbell
This is an “unplugged” mix by Brian. I’ve always enjoyed old-school albums that included alternate versions of particular songs, so here it is. Enjoy.
CD Mastering: Craig Zurba
alisonhogan.com 