Charlie Bookout Studio Works

A little history... Back in the 80s, there was a microscopic town in rural Arkansas where life was simple. If you could learn how to spit and take the ditch to run over a possum with your pickup, you were a man. There were no other rights of passage. But something weird happened. There was a group of kids who wanted more. They were all born with an inexplicable desire to create (visit www.mortuarygang.com for more of that story).

My own story involved some of the most primitive lo-tech multi-track recording imaginable. (Step #1: Start off by placing a $2 microphone up to a speaker that is playing the drum pattern you recorded. Step #2: Run the mic into a 2nd tape deck while you play a keyboard part to merge with it. Step #3: Put the 2nd tape into the first deck and repeat the process with a third instrument. Presto! You're your own one-man-band!) But I moved forward, figuring that must be how the pros did it, and started composing. I wrote song after song firmly rooted to the influences of the 1970's progressive rock of Kansas, the modern funk of Prince, and the whatever of Saturday morning School House Rock cartoons.