Cobblestone Runway

I’ve always considered my ‘Cobblestone Runway’ album as the beginning of my second phase as a recording artist. My first four albums were all made in a sort of traditional singer/songwriter mode with much critical success but not much in the way of commercial success. I was trying to find someone who could help me update my “folky” sound so that it might appeal to the string pullers at radio as well as the folks who’d never “got me” before. In Martin Terefe I found such a person.

I’d known Martin since the 90’s and in fact we have the same manager. But I had been loyal to Mitchell Froom and felt that he was almost like my ‘George Martin’ so to speak, but sadly none of those albums ever connected with radio. Nor had the follow up album “Blue Boy” which was produced by Steve Earle and Ray Kennedy.

I was in a bit of a rut so while on tour promoting the Blue Boy album (2001) I ducked into Martin’s Kensal-town studio to begin laying down songs for what would become ‘Cobblestone Runway’ tracking mainly voice and guitar over a three or four day period. Most of the other instrumentation you’ll hear (bass, drums, strings, backing vocals etc) was done while I was off on a seemingly never-ending tour so I never got to meet most of the musicians who played on the record. Whenever Martin would send me a rough mix I never knew what was coming next. It’s not how I normally like to record but it was exciting nonetheless to hear Martin’s arrangements over top of these simple demos.

And just as I had hoped, he was able to sparkle each track with electronic elements and interesting groove ideas to bring my music head long into this brave new century. My voice was still evolving on this album and it wouldn’t be until the next one (‘Retriever’) where I’d be finally okay with it. I was singing well enough though (and the production was current enough) that I started to get some radio play and on Canada’s ‘Much More Music’ channel I got loads of video play. In fact the video for ‘Gold In Them
Hills’ (featuring Chris Martin) went all the way to number one! ‘Cobblestone Runway’ included songs such as ‘Former Glory’, ‘These Days’, ‘God Loves Everyone’ (and the aforementioned ‘Gold In Them Hills’) which are now among some of my best loved and most requested songs.

The album also gave my career a much needed booster shot with a new record deal, publishing deal, and in many ways a new lease on life. It wasn’t an easy album by any means to make but sometimes those are the ones that can put you back in the game.

Thanks for listening,
Ron Sexsmith

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