“Channel36 had guitar lessons on television,” Stano recalls. “I think Peggy Seeger wasthe instructor. You would get a book and follow along.” After that start, Stanomainly taught himselfdrawing from favorite songwriters like John Prine andMississippi John Hurtuntil he entered the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music'sfinger-style guitar program in the '80s.
Stanoremembers his first time in a studio, recording at Madison's Smart Studios with Butch Vig in theearly '80s. “It was $50 per hour, nosecond takes,” he says. “My goal was to get some demo tapes to get jobs. I knewI didn't have the money to do a record. I thought you needed a record companyfor that.”
Bythe mid-'90s, that was no longer the case. Recording technology had advanced tothe point where Stano could release his own music. Stano describes his 1995debut album, Playing in Deep Water,as a solo project, but says his new Caribou Bar & Grill is morecollaborative. It began in 2007 as a recording project at the Engine Room withWilly Porter and Al Williams and was finished with Mike Hoffmann at The House.
Whileacoustic guitar and harmonica remain Stano's stock in trade, Caribou's title song crosses Nick Loweand Los Lobos, thanks to drummer Reggie Bordeaux and Hoffmann on bass. The rustbelt blues-memory of “Pontiac'sNo More” recalls the working-class grit of Bruce Springsteen and John Fogerty.Many of his tunes draw from real life.
“Iwould say that they mostly all start from an autobiographical perspective andsome songs stay on that road,” Stano says. “But some songs take a left turn forthe sake of the story or the lyric. Sometimes things that I've experienced orthat someone I know has experienced become part of a different song character'sstory. So it is biographical, but not in a completely literal sense.”
Stanois quick to credit Porter and Hoffmann as co-conspirators in the project. Heexplains that when he was recording the song “Soul Is…,” “I was really digginginto the guitar and probably over-singing the vocal too, because the song wasnew and I was really feeling it. I remember him (Porter) telling me that hethought hearing that song felt like being in church and I should ease back. Idid and am really happy with the result.”
Aftera break in the first stage of the recording project, Stano began work withHoffmann, who was recommended by Paul Cebar (Hoffmann recorded Cebar's recentacoustic solo album One Little Light On).Hoffmann's enthusiasm and imagination paid off with production touches notnormally seen in the singer-songwriter realm. Hoffmann crafted a sonic mosaicthat allowed Stano to seize a moment of opportunity.
“Igot to use some home recordings, an old radio and a turntable to get the feelof an old record in ‘Other People's Blues,'” he says. “That song was inspiredby my love of old country and urban blues and how you used to have torepeatedly pick up the needle and put it back over a passage to decode a riffor a lyric.”
John Stano plays analbum release show at the Sugar Maple on Friday, Sept. 10, at 8 p.m.
