Notes: Robin's Birthday came about when I found an old picture of my wife, Robin's 18th birthday. She was with her sister and friends friends in the kitchen and they looked like they were having a very cool time (see picture) at the swim party. Robin is seen holding a glass second from right.
I had been fiddling around with an instrumental song I'd made up in Open-B tuning when I found the picture. It reminded me that Robin's birthday was coming up and I hadn't thought of what to give her. So, I finished the song, with the picture in front of me, and recorded it. I gave it to Robin for her birthday present in 2007 and the CD had the old picture on it and I called the song Robin's Birthday.
Guitar notes: The way I discovered the Open-B tuning was that I came up with the idea to play a C chord in Standard tuning and then tune the strings up to that chord so that when I played the guitar open it was exactly like a fingered C chord. After playing that way for about a week the tuning slipped all the way down to Open-B tuning, but I hadn't realized it until I went to tune up for recording the tune. It was then that I realized that I really liked the tune better in B than C. Accidents can make for extraordinary results. When I went to add the lap steel guitar, playing in B made it a closer match to the standard E-tuning I played that part in.
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Acoustic and lap steel guitars: Joey Latimer
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