On the Fly

Description

On the Fly is an instrumental album by the American singer, songwriter, and guitarist Phil Keaggy, released on Canis Major in 1997, a division of John August Music. The album was recorded and mixed at Phil Keaggy’s own Kegworth Studio in Nashville, Tennessee; and was produced by Keaggy with John August Schroeter co-producing. Overdubs recorded and mixed at New River Studio and Jane’s Place in Nashville, Tennessee.

Featuring Phil Keaggy providing both acoustic and electric guitars, mandolin, bass, keyboards, and drum programming, with guest musicians Lynn Williams on drums, Eric Darken on percussion, as well as Wanda Vick Burchfield on violin with Jack Ballard providing keyboards and bass on track 4.

The name refers to the Parker Fly, Phil Keaggy’s primary guitar on this project, but rather than being just a showcase for the guitar this is also another fine instrumental outing from Christian music’s most influential guitarist. Keaggy focuses more on sound and technique than on previous albums, resulting in an album with exquisite arrangment and ambience in addition to excellent compositions. He also develops these songs to their fullest, particularly on the five-part suite «The Way of a Pilgrim» and the 24 minute «The Sojourner». Many of the songs include a very supportive rhythm section that broadens each piece while not intruding on Keaggy’s superior musicianship; other pieces are simply layers of acoustic guitar. Either way, Keaggy’s playing continues to astonish and inspire. [Marc Castellani, AMG]

Album Liner Notes

The pilgrim sets out on his journey with a few items in his backpack and a prayer on his lips – an ancient prayer consisting of only a few words. But these words, expressed with each heart beat and cadence of his own footsteps, serve to strengthen his resolved pilgrimage – alone but never lonely.

There is a celebration with friends, family, and other pilgrim sojourners, each following the course of their destiny. With renewed heart, rested mind and body, nourished by the Father’s generous bounty and the living bread from heaven, the traveler establishes his course on a wet spring morning – rain and dew intermingled with the atmosphere of land, sky, sea and air.

He has a vision not unshared by so many others longing for the peace, solitude, and the ready hand of friendship, held out so compassionately by the Pioneer and Captain of his very life and soul.

Music moves within, melodies turning back and forth, past and future, and savored in the vibrant present, treading again that ancient track. Lovely the woods, water, and meadows. In field, village and town, bright stars singing, while the wind shakes the aging leaves.

Tender Lord, lay me down on the pillow of your mercy, for I am a stranger in this land longing for home. Homecoming again with memories stirring within of father, mother, sister, brother united in pilgrimage, faith, and heavenly vision seen, sensed, touched, tasted – true and everlasting. – Phil Keaggy

CD tracklist:

01. Intro – 0:59
02. Praise Dance – 6:50
03. (Interlude) – 1:16
04. Firewalker – 4:53
05. (Interlude) – 2:10
06. – 11. The Way Of a Pilgrim (Vision/Longing/Pursuit/The Journey/The Return/Rest) – 14:45
12. (Interlude) – 2:37
13. In Memorium – 6:03
14. Homecoming – 4:55
15. The Sojourner – 24:21
16. (Interlude) – 0:59
17. Outro – 0:40

Note: Available at Bandcamp: https://philkeaggy.bandcamp.com/album/on-the-fly

Remembering “On The Fly” updated notes by Phil Keaggy

I set out to do a concept instrumental album. At the time I was recording with both a reel to reel 8 track machine then finished the album using Adat 8 through 24 track recording. Since my earlier notes express the spiritual and nature side of the concept, I will here explore more of the technical aspects of an album that to this day is a bit of a hidden gem and very special to me.

Track 1) Steps (Entering):
We have a pond behind our home that is a part of the neighborhood’s common ground. I took a midi disc recorder with a mic and walked along the lake sloshing through the soaked ground whistling, I believe a hymn. You can hear the thunder. I then added some keyboard sounds then it fades to ..

Track 2) Praise Dance:
The track started with a loop I created on my Korg 01W keyboard, added acoustic, mandolin, a Langejans classical guitar and a Yamaha fretless bass loaned to me by pal John Schroeter. John helped produce this album with me. I played the sweetening string parts on the Korg synth. The sweetest addition to the song came when Eric Darken added his amazing percussion! This track also appears on Lights Of Madrid, an album I produced a few years later – with a different mix.

Track 3) Untitled Instrumental #1:
This is me playing my Parker Fly with a sweeping technique using my Ebow – a devise I’ve using for over 4 decades. It has a fiddle effect with a touch of Irish – it’s in my blood!

Track 4) Firewalker:
Friend and accomplished composer/musician – Jack Ballard sent me his keyboard and bass tracks to try my hand at a guitar part for his song. He gave me permission to complete the song adding drums (Lynn Williams) and violin (Wanda Vick Burchfield). It is really a sweet track and collaboration! Kudos to mixing engineer Randy Gardner for the sonic charm of this piece!

Track 5) Untitled Instrumental #2:
This is my Parker Fly played direct in to my recording system – I believe was Adat. The verb and delay add the atmosphere. This 2nd natural finished Parker Fly had a whammy bar unlike my 1st black one, which I used along with this one. The Parkers were the only electric guitars (apart from the basses) that I used on this album. I own neither of them today, sadly! I sold one – then loaned the other out and eventually found myself Parker-less. I hope the new owners appreciate the music that came out of these instruments.

Tracks 6 ~ 11) The Way of a Pilgrim: Vision, Longing, Pursuit, The Journey, The Return and Rest:
These 6 pieces flow together as a thematic picturesque, musical journey. I’m playing my 1984 Olson guitar. I utilized my Lexicon Jamman for real time backwards bits. The guitar was installed with a LR Baggs duet mic/piezo system, which I still use to this day! This medley has a very Acoustic Sketches style as I using my Jamman for loops. (by the way, I just finished compiling an Acoustic Sketches Vol 3 album – very happy with how it turned out!)

Track 12) Untitled Instrumental #3:
This track is related to the previous untitled pieces – quiet and contemplative… I use volume swells, using my pinky on the volume. Some of the lines here I used to play when soloing while in Glass Harp back in the early 70s.

Track 13) In Memorium:
This track holds a lot of emotions for me! I played to a percussion loop I created then had Lynn Williams play real drums, which gave the piece more life indeed! I played the keys in my amateurish way but it still added to the emotion of the track. At 3:47 I harmonized my acoustic lead lines, not punching in on the multi-track, but playing to the the loop of the 1st lines which lasted through 4:37. That’s an odd way to do a harmony, but I enjoyed the “live”, so to speak, challenge. At the time the Lexicon Jamman was my only looping device. The Parker Fly guitar sounds sweet on this piece, both the clean sound as well as with the overdrive settings. At the time I composed this piece, one of my older brothers was dealing with health issues and I feel that my concern for him made its way into this recording, emotionally!

Track 14) Homecoming:
On this piece, I used a borrowed Resonator guitar from luthier Paul McGill for both the guitar parts. There’s a joy to this piece that is the sunrise to the more pensive previous track. Interesting from 3:29 to 3:49 I play a riff that I’ve kicked around for decades and even recorded the riff on a tune called «Sometimes 11» on The Bucket List with Tony Levin and Jerry Morrotta about 14 years later in 2010 (thereabouts).

Track 15) Sojourner :
Here’s an interesting recording experience/experiment, might I add, that is one of the reasons for these new liner notes… At the time of this recording, I was still only using my Teac 388~8 track reel to reel machine. What I did first was mess around with my Korg 01W to create a loop which lasted about a minute and 25 seconds and then was programmed to repeat continuously without stopping. As the story goes, I loaded a 7” reel of magnetic tape that would run at 7 1/2 IPS (inches per second) for 30 minutes magnetic tape that would run at 7 1/2 IPS (inches per second) for 30 minutes then the spool would run out. I planned on playing my Parker Fly for that whole duration of the tape without stopping. You can hear the rise and softening of the percussion loop throughout the entirety of the track. There were times I had to re-tune or make a slight adjustment with tone but I never stopped the tape machine. 30 minutes went by and I was exhilarated. I had the two tracks from the loop/keyboard and 4 tracks for the Fly guitar. The piezo pickup was fed into a Korg ToneWorks G2-Acoustic Guitar Processor and the magnetic pickup output into a Boss Pro SE-70 Super Effects Processor. There was no amp used. As I “journeyed” through all the improvising throughout, I would now and then randomly change the presets of the SE-70 which were the mag pickups. The processor has broken just this past year, so you can see that I really liked it and found use for it now and then. So… the next day I plugged my old Gibson G-3 (The Ripper) bass and proceeded to play bass to the whole 30 minute jam. What took 30 minutes of non stop guitar playing, for the bass took about 3 hours of punching in the bass bits on the Teac 8 Track. I remember using a “felt” material bass pick… and by the end of the whole bass session I had little bits of fine felt powdery bits all over my shirt and pants. It was funny! I was determined to follow the “guitar player” wherever his muse took him. Once the bass was added, we, John Schroeter, Randy Gardner and percussionist Eric Darken went to New River Studio where we edited up to 6 minutes of tuning and such out of the long piece for Eric’s percussion parts. All smooth and ready to go now! «Sojourner» lasts a little over 24 minutes now. Eric first laid down a shaker part. I was fascinated that he never stopped for a break during the 24 minutes to rest his arm or hand and never once got out of time! He’s that good! Then, he used a variety of percussive instruments on multiple tracks to add sounds and colors. From around 16:20 to 17:20 he used amazing techniques and perc instruments. There is a recurring theme to the long piece… but as my friend Lynn Nichols aptly said this piece could be called “I never met lick I didn’t like”! In fact around 20:37, Lynn taught me that “lick” himself! There you have it for «Sojourner»… You won’t hear this on commercial radio, but maybe somebody out there, during the wee hours, might find it fun to play while they make coffee or a midnight snack during the broadcast – Haha!

Track 16) Untitled Instrumental #4:
This is the last of the 4 bits as interludes as…

Track 17) Steps (Exiting)… from the rain and thunder and I close the garage door behind me.

This album is one of dozens but in time and space it holds wonderful memories as I continued to learn guitar and learn how to engineer my own music. I’d like to thank Ken Parker and the folks at Parker Guitars for their finely made instruments that helped to inspire many of these pieces.. It’s fun to Rediscove…!