After She Left (and then some)

“Give My Regards To Ray“- Chandler Travis, from the new release “After She Left (and then some… )” – In 2009, I put out an album called “After She Left” that was mainly made up of acoustic ballads, recorded largely with Chris Blood at Trout Towers in Orleans, most with Keith Spring on keys, Ken Field on sax, John Clark on string bass, and Rikki Bates on drums, plus occasional guests. I had tried to do a ballad album years before when I did “Ivan in Paris“, but basically chickened out and added a couple more uptempo things when it seemed like I was having trouble sustaining the mood I was after over the course of a full album, so “After My Left” was my second try, and this time I felt like the idea worked ok (though making it relatively short- just eleven songs- certainly helped), and the album was relatively successful (meaning that over the course of the last decade or so, it may have nearly broken even!)

Anyway, there was a pretty big pile of outtakes (bigger than I thought- I just found another a few hours ago!), a few that we posted briefly in rough mix form when we were first promoting the album, and another few that have never seen the light of day until now, including “True Old Girl“, which I hadn’t thought of in years, but just added some harmonies to the other night, and “Never Never Land“, which is the one I’d forgotten about completely, despite despite how much I love the song and additionally love singing it.

“Give My Regards To Ray” is unusual for “After She Left“, in that it’s not really a ballad, and the arrangement feels a little more dense (which is probably why I left it off in the first place); other than “Ray”, on both the original album and this outtakes collection, the instrumentation is pretty sparse, and the arrangements fairly simple (restraint not being a goal I always achieve.)

“After She Left (and then some… )” also includes:

True Old Girl
Candle
King Of the Road
After She Left
Never Never Land