My Friend Chip Chilton

I remember running across Chip and the Chiltons during the 80's in Nashville when, I to, was aspiring to become a rock sensation (it may have been nothing more than lack of talent standing in my way, though).

As we entered the 90's, the studio I spent all my nights and weekends in, was upgraded from an 8-track to a 16-track. It was then that I hooked up with Chip and the band to do a couple sessions: one in March of '92 and one later in June (see the bottom of this page). I don't believe we ever ended up finishing those tracks with a final mix but I do know that we ended up using a lot of the rhythm beds in 25 Days With a Smart Mouth.

Some time in the late 90's, Chip approached me with the idea for a project. He had heard through friends that I was experimenting with video editing in my studio and he, as I found out later, had always been a film maker. What he brought me was roughly 14 hours of footage from his most recent, once a year bike trip down Route 66. I don't really remember the exact origin of the title but it seems to me that 25 Days With a Smart Mouth was it right out of the gate. (I mean really, could it be anything else?)

Anyway, we spent nearly a year on the thing. Working once or twice a week and trying desperately to get the original 14 hours down to something of a viewable length. Which in the end was about 3 hrs and 20 minutes. I tried till I was blue in the face to cut more but Chip hung on to his precious riding footage like he'd done it all himself. Oh, wait, he did.

Well, after working together for a year on that thing, we didn't want to stop--we were just having too much fun. So we ended up doing a couple semi-feature length things together (It's Human Skin and encounter) and a sequel (not the sequel) to 25 Days called the Money's No Object Tour.

Chip was a lot of things: film maker, musician, artist, comedian, gun expert, odd bird...but in the end, he was my friend. And I wouldn't trade that for anything.

These tracks were originally recorded in 2 sessions in March and June of 1992. I digitized the original Tascam MSR-16 16-track tracks into Sonar Professional and remixed and mastered them. It was a lot of fun and an all too often emotional journey down memory lane.

The one thing I remember clearly about working with Chip (the guitar player) in the studio was his insistence that his Marshall stack be placed on plywood and that we mic the amp and the room. I went through several versions of these mixes, each time having an imaginary conversation with Chip and then going back and tweaking accordingly. I put a lot of effort into leaving something that he'd be proud of.

My Friend Chip Chilton

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