During the winter of 2008 the seeds of Coyote were sewn. While his fellow banjo player Dave Carroll (Trampled By Turtles) in Two Many Banjos was off gallivanting across the globe Marc Gartman began to experiment with the idea of doing a simpler, quieter record. Marc showed Jerree Small (Southwire) a couple of his new songs; Jerree played Marc a couple of her own and they were off and rolling.
The songs on ‘Times of Drought’ were written quickly and within certain parameters. The material included with this project were only the songs that didn’t fit into either of their other respective bands. Heavily influenced by Gillian Welch’s Time (The Revelator) CD the songs were laid to tape live and as just the duo.
In weekly sessions in her home Marc and Jerree got together in Superior to write and practice the songs they had written in the days prior. Some were from a distant past (Last Night, Ten Folds of Paper) but most were written in the weeks leading up the actual recording session. They taped their rehearsals, came up with new harmonies, figured out which songs worked and which didn’t. Close to 15 were up for consideration but ultimately only 12 were chosen to be included on their debut CD.
Recorded to 2” analog tape at the mighty Sacred Heart Church with engineer Eric Swanson (Low, Crash Test Dummies) at the board it was all said and done in a single late winter afternoon session. A week later it was mixed and mastered in a couple of evenings with minimal overdubs.
Marc has begun work on a follow up CD, which he hopes to have written before the end of 2008.