Hard Times

It's another snowy day here in southern Ohio, and at the risk of causing your ears to callous, I recorded a song today that I wrote a few years ago. It's one of my favorites not only because of the subject matter but also the research I put into it and the time it took. My youngest daughter and I had been researching my father's side of our family from southeastern KY. I found an article from a 1930 newspaper that mentioned a coal mine in Haymond (Letcher county) was being shut down because after 60 years the vein had run out. At first I didn't think too much about it but then realized that the Depression had started and there was no where for the miners to go for work. I began doing more research and found out in a nearby town where there was a railroad yard, they had to lay off a bunch of employees because there wasn't any coal for the trains to haul. And two sawmills that cut timbers for the mines had to shut down, so those families were without work too. After suffering through WWI and the Spanish Flu, now they were faced with this. No doubt that those were hard times and so that's what I named the song. I had never recorded it as it's kind of a depressing song, but with the COVID problems and today's weather I'm a little bit of a "down" mood, so I felt like playing it.

Usually I just record with one mic, but today I used two mics - one for vocals and another to mic my 000 Martin so I could boost the bass a little more.

https://soundcloud.com/user-198880521/hard-times