Footsteps
The 2nd release from Kevin Ross
Public Release--April/May, 2002

1. Pick Up (4:26)
2. Elise (4:00)
3. One Child (3:28)
4. A Little Bit Lonely (4:18)
5. Falling Star (4:52)
6. Footsteps Theme (2:15)
7. Charleston (4:03)
8. If I Can't Have You (4:05)
9. Bridge (4:27)
10. I Will Follow (4:33)
11. When I Get Home (3:28)
12. Somewhere Up The Road (3:16)
13. Across The Sky (6:09)

All songs written by Kevin Ross
<©> 2002, Kevin Ross, except
"A Little Bit Lonely" (<©> 2001)
and "Across The Sky" (<©>1999)

Recorded, produced, mixed, and mastered by Kevin Ross
All instruments and vocals performed by Kevin Ross
Engineered by Kevin Ross
Photography by Kevin Ross and Jennifer McLean
Art Design by Kevin Ross

    April 2002...and the machine *slowly* started rolling again.  I've been writing off and on for the past ten months, learning some new tricks, and traveling the world (well, the eastern half of the U.S., but still!).  Some of the new songs, along with a few that I had written before my graduation from Ball State, have been worked up and readied for my second "official" release.  "Footsteps" goes a lot of different directions as compared to the last songs you heard from me.  All the songs have been recorded on my personal computer, yet it still has been done in three different places.  One song, "A Little Bit Lonely", was written in January 2001 and considered for the debut release, with one track of the recording done while still a student.  The other songs have all been recorded in the process of moving to a new house.  13 songs have been put together for the album, with "Across The Sky" returning from my earliest releases.  The song was originally written in 1999, and put on my various one-track recording compilations for friends.  It has always been a bit of a favorite of mine, so I decided to redo the song.  It is now a bit slower, and, instead of the usual guitar tracks that dominate my other songs, you will hear it done solo on piano.
    The time taken on this album has allowed me to experiment with a few different ideas, though I will let you the listener be the judge of whether or not they are successful.  You will hear background vocals, slide guitar, piano playing, and an instrumental among these songs.  As a songwriter, the job is to write the best song possible.  As a musician, the job is to do justice to the songs.  I'm probably a bit of a ways from succeeding completely in those jobs, but I would like to think I'm getting better.  Thus, the title of this album.  I would like to think that I'm improving a little bit all the time.  Hopefully, you won't mind joining me on this journey, because I plan on continuing upward.

                                                                                                Kevin Ross
                                                                                                4/21/2002
 

A little about the songs...

"Somewhere Up The Road"

    This was actually the last song written for the album.  It started as a bit of a writing exercise.  I decided to write out a melody before writing the chords or any kind of rhythm for the song.  It is a fairly simple melody, and I really liked it.  All of a sudden, the words just seemed to come out and fit.  I will also admit that I intended it to be a shorter song.  I liked the idea of saying a lot with a minimum of words, just to see how it felt.  Of all the songs on this album, it was probably the easiest to put together and record.  Most of the tracks only took one take, and the song was finished in just a couple hours.

“Across The Sky”

     A very old song about a girlfriend.  It was one of the first occasions where somebody came to me and said, “That’s exactly how I feel!”  I took a lot of time to write the words, and those words went through a lot of revisions.  I have about three or four ideas for the song that just got dumped along the way because they didn’t work.  I have usually performed the song on guitar, but that method never really conveyed the fact that this was meant to be a ballad.  I think the piano does a much better job.

“Footsteps Theme”

     I tuned my guitar a little differently one night to try a couple other songs, and the basic melody just started coming out.  I had most of it written by the end of that night.  The biggest problem with this song is that I do not consider myself that good of a guitar player, and this song needed good guitar playing.  It took me days of takes to get to the final take.  It was a pain, but it was worth every step.  My first instrumental, too.  It’s kinda nice to not worry about words or a hackneyed melody.  Just pick up the guitar and play.

“A Little Bit Lonely”

     This was a leftover from the BSU Sessions.  I wrote it right before I started the recordings for that album, and I wanted something else with a harmonica on it besides “Waiting To Fall.”  So I started work on this song.  But the five songs that made the list were enough and I didn’t have time for number six, and this got left by the wayside for a while.  At home, though, I was able to take the necessary time to fill out the track.  It had a few other things that were new to me too…backing vocals and echoes.  It’s always good to stretch a little bit.  Oh…and the song.  It came from a few too many quiet nights around the residence hall when everybody else seemed to be having a good time.

“Charleston”

      Well, I was in Charleston, South Carolina, and I was alone with my guitar for an afternoon.  I decided to try and write a song for the friends I was visiting.  It sorta came out like this.  Not perfect, but it works.

“When I Get Home”

      I wrote this one while in the process of moving between houses.  I had my keyboard sitting alone upstairs, and there was nothing to do there but play it.  So I came up with the first chords, and the rest came slowly as I played more and more.  I had to hold it in my head, because my computer was at the other house and I couldn’t record it on anything else.  Eventually, I got the computer over there and the song got finished very quickly after that.

“I Will Follow”

      I picked up my guitar and started playing with a couple chords, and the words just flowed right out.  The slide guitar seemed like a nice contrast to the fast rhythm.  Both tracks of guitar were played on the red acoustic.  The sound on the slide track was achieved by running it through my electric guitar effects pedal.

“Bridge”

      Trying to do some damage control with a friend.  I don’t know if it was quite obvious here, but that was the impetus.  Oh, and a Garth Brooks song in my head too.

“Falling Star”

      I wrote this my junior year at college.  Another tune where I needed to play guitar better before I could put it out there.  That’s why it took so long.  I still like it a lot…kinda different from most of my other stuff.

“If I Can’t Have You”

      I came up with the chorus first here, then I tried to make some words fit around how I thought the rest should go.  It’s a little stiff, as far as smooth songs go, but that’s nothing that time and a little tweaking can’t fix!

“One Child”

      I had the guitar line of that for months, and then I had a couple verses for a month, and then the rest all came out at once.  Thanks to South Carolina for getting me going on it!

“Elise”

      If you’ve ever heard of the Canadian band Great Big Sea, it’s a bit of their sound.  I had just listened to a live CD of theirs, and I wanted to try and capture that energy.  A lot of coastal references, to boot.  It really came out very easily.  I kept changing the chord patterns around, though.  There are some parts of this song that I am VERY happy with.

“Pick Up”

      My first attempt at a Dave Matthews-ish song.  I wrote it just a month or two after graduating from college.  I didn’t know who I was writing it for then, but I think it may have been an advance warning to myself.  I think this was the second run-through of the song.  I didn’t feel like I wanted to chance too many screw-ups another time around.  My first time trying to come up with a slide guitar line, too.  A pleasant surprise to say the least.