In November Sunlight
Soko: Johnny Gilmore, Michael Sokolowski, Houston Ross
“This is what pianos hear when they dream. ”
Soko’s debut album, and Breezeway’s best-selling record by far.
After six years of steady gigging, the band went into the studio on August 10, 1995 to record some of the music they had been playing for all of that time. In a couple of sessions, they put down the basic trio tracks for all of songs that made it to the released record. The band’s youthful performance energy is captured, as they wind their way through the Michael Sokolowski compositions they knew so well. In subsequent sessions, they would bring other musicians into the studio to enhance the arrangements. These players were friends of the band who had played many gigs with them in the past: saxophonist LeRoi Moore, guitarist Tim Reynolds, and percussionist Darrell Rose. Another friend, but who wasn’t a frequent performer with the band, Dave Matthews sang the lyrics to “Jiriki.”
As it turned out, the previous day had been a tragic one for the large group of underground music fans who call themselves “deadheads.” On August 9, Jerry Garcia died in his sleep while recuperating at a rehab facility in Marin County, California. This was back in the day when it was decidedly not hip among musicians to identify as a Grateful Dead fan. Mike was a ‘head,’ but had never shared that tidbit with his musician friends. When preparing for the big session, he received word that Jerry had passed. As was true of every other deadhead, Mike was in mourning — staying up all night talking to friends on the phone and watching the non-stop coverage on TV. Needless to say, he was sleep-deprived and sad when it came time for the first big studio session of his life. All that emotion must have found its way into the various takes. At one point during the sessions, Johnny was listening to some Grateful Dead jams as part of the ongoing news coverage, and observes to Michael, “hey, they sound kinda like us!” Busted! He hadn’t even really thought explicitly of the musical influence he had absorbed over 50+ dead shows. For years prior, Soko performed a certain gospel/rock anthem under various titles, never settling on one that felt right. They recorded it on Day 1 of the sessions. When the engineer asked him for the title to fill in on the reel tape’s tracking sheet, Mike replied, without pause, “Your Steps Alone” — a poignant phrase from Robert Hunter’s songwriting masterpiece, “Ripple.” Later, it would seem Mike that, through his tenor sax, LeRoi Moore evoked the spirit of Jerry.
As the years passed, Houston and Michael would come to believe that In November Sunlight songs were not optimally performed and were marred with mistakes and looseness. They would end up re-recording the album as the eponymously titled Sokoband, released at the end of 2009. While those later versions are indeed more precisely executed and feature some impeccable playing by an array of marvelous musicians, the fullness of time has revealed that the original recording captures an unmatched level of energy and ensemble power — warts and all. If you’re a fan of that record, checking out where the music came from is something of a revelation.
Available formats: digital files for download and streaming (44.1 kHz/16-bit • mp3) • compact disc
You can find these items in the Breezeway Records on this site.
Cover art:
Cover paintings by Darrell Rose
Johnny Gilmore, Michael Sokolowski, Houston Ross
Portrait of John Coltrane, Traore Leigh
Westhaven Bridge, Charlottesville, VA, 1996
Portrait of Martin Luther King, Jr & Malcolm X by Traore Leigh. Street art by the Children of Westhaven