It’s come to our attention that the CD packaging of Sing the Sun’s Return is missing the engineering credit for Alan Stockwell of Black Mountain Audio. We’ve tried to piece together what happened, and the best we can figure was that it was a copy-paste error somewhere in  the process between our original draft of the liner notes (in which it did appear) and the CD graphics file.

So just to set the record straight: Alan Stockwell is an awesome engineer! We first met him in 2003, at his old Studio SoundDesign in Brattleboro. We were part of a big chorus Peter Amidon assembled for his first Amidon Arrangements recording session. What I remember about Alan from then is how patient he was with the logistics more than fifty people (including us stir-crazy teenagers) hanging around his studio. For that session, I got to stay around for an extra day and watch the first day of editing and mixing. I remember being impressed with how he somehow managed to edit the straight ahead performance of Mary Alice Amidon and Tony Barrand’s freely syncopated performance and turn them into a coherent duet that sounded like it could have been rehearsed and performed together (they had recorded on separate days). Watching Alan work opened up a world of audio recording possibilities that I had never even considered before. The recording projects I’ve worked on since then have always been inspired by the technical mastery with an unaffected final product that Alan is so good at.

So I count myself lucky to have been able to work on two separate recording projects with him this year, now at Black Mountain Audio, his cozy little studio attached to his home. Alan continues to demonstrate incredible patience with the complicated editing process of four Windborne backseat drivers or Lynn and my complicated guest artist arrangements.

There is a fine art to taking a raw recording and turning it into something you actually want to listen to, no matter how good the performance is. Alan is a master of that art; his mixes add to a recording without adding so much that you’re listening to the effects rather than the performers. And he’s a complete wizard with audio fixes, let me tell you! It’s no wonder that so many folk artists in Southern Vermont work with him; we cannot recommend him highly enough for all of your recording, mixing, mastering, and live sound needs.

Alan, we salute you and here’s our humble attempt to fix our mistake:

Recorded, Mixed, and Mastered masterfully by the great Alan Stockwell, Black Mountain Audio, Brattleboro, VT.

Thank you, Alan!