One reason I chose The Fisherman's Daughter as the song to cover, was because of the drama involved.  This version is nowhere near the original by Daniel Lanois -- as evident from the first note & I had no intention of making a song that sounds like the original.  Daniel's version is so perfect, that I couldn't even bring myself to sing on the track.  I wanted to take the concept of the spoken poem & run with it...  Sort-of like writing a soundtrack for the poem.  There is alot of imagery in this version.  "Maybe too much ornament", as Daniel might say...

Background:
The Distance Project was a concept developed by Alan Houser. 
It's a microcosm of The Unbreakable chain: a conglomerate to make a whole.

It's evident that Alan loves a challenge & this project was no exception...
Alan's idea was brought to life when he stumbled on a vocalist (while surfing mp3.com) named Annie Vox, vocalist / spoken word artist.  Annie's voice was a perfect blend of passion & realism to make the song complete. 

Technical:
The original intent was to build the song with the individual pieces (vocals, drums & guitar) & assemble them together.  Since I use an analog multitrack, it certainly was a challenge. 

Being a spoken-word song, the vocals could still survive with a 'shifted tempo' (i.e. - if it gets off beat, no-one would notice). 
The drums, as I came to find out, could NOT.  The basic tracks were first created with a sequenced drum loop, my scratch vocal & guitar and mixed to DAT & CD-R.  Annie basically did karaoke to my version (with headphones), while recording a dry vocal & mailed me the CD.  Dave used a similar method with a CD walkman, while having his engineer record the live drums to MiniDisc.
We assumed that using digital media in the karaoke mode, the drums would 'lock' back up with the sequenced track.  --Nope.

I wanted really badly to keep the sequenced beat & bury it to the left as the song grew, but by the time the song hit the crescendo, the drums were painfully 'out of pocket'.  As the night drew on I started to hear how cheesy the sequenced drums sounded, compared to the real drums.  I started from scratch & rebuilt the song in no time at all.  I woke up my wife at 3:30am (dangerous thing to do) and ran the song past her.  Luckily, she loved it.

The sound in my head for the lead guitar part was a viola or a cello.  I went from there to considering a sax, but the song at this point was too 'nautical' to use a sax.  I needed that same dreamy guitar (or as my wife would say 'drippy').  I also wanted to keep it "a distance project", so I contacted a friend in South Carolina, who was eager to play for me.  We both agreed that it would be very difficult to 'fill the holes' that I had available without him being in the same room.  I knew I couldn't afford a plane ticket (or even studio time with fiber / ISDN -- Puff Daddy I am not); after depleting all of my contacts in my little black book, I decided to play the parts myself!

Introducing the talented Aria Peterson to the microphone was an interesting addition to the project.  I thought it would be interesting to have Annie play the role of the grown daughter, remembering as a child...  Does the voice at the end bring a tear to your eye, or is it just me?

Alan