Gary Alt

The intro to this song came to me after listening to Blind Willie Johnson sing Dark Was the Night. One of the most haunting vocal performances I've ever heard. Then I decided to marry that to a Cream style song/jam, then back to Blind Willie Johnson at the end.
Recording this song took a long time. The original demo was done in a day or so when the song was first written. Using old technology, the timing of each distinct part of the song blending into the next was difficult to get right. When I resurrected this song for the Tribute album, I decided that I would use the beginning and ending as originally recorded, but that the song proper and jam had to be replaced. Here's how I did that:
As I did with Color Chain, I first laid down a basic drum beat and thumping bass line that had no variation. Then I recorded the guitar part. Also as with Color Chain I did multiple takes, but wound up using one complete recording in the end. Next I re-recorded the bass while carefully listening to the guitar part in order to respond to the various changes as if two musicians were playing together. Then the same with the drums. As with the guitar part, I wound up using a single performance from the numerous takes of all the instruments involved. Thanks to the advent of mixing software, it was then relatively easy to join the two intro parts (the second of which was also re-recorded recently), the song proper and jam, and the ending part.