Pete Francis (b. 1975)

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“A Pete Francis record feels like a ride from New York City to the coast of Maine.”

American Musician, Writer, Poet, Singer-Songwriter, Founding member of Dispatch


 



“He says I’m telling you, I’m burning the river”

So They Say
Pete Francis

1. Burning The River 
2. Father Rose
3. During The Storm 
4. If I May 
5. Train Window
6. I Don’t Wanna Fight
7. Auburndale
8. Carry You
9. Go Ridin’
10. So They Say

Year: 2001

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"So They Say is my first solo record. I recorded it in the Summer of 2000 with Jack Gauthier at Lakewest Recording Studio in Rhode Island. Lakewest is a cool studio. Totally unassuming - it could be mistaken for a military barracks. Inside those cinder block walls and windowless rooms is a magical temple of sound. Jack is the studio owner and musical guru. Many of the amazing blues recordings by Duke Robillard were done at Lakewest. He's recorded countless bands - Dispatch's Bang Bang and Four-Day Trials were recorded there. Jack recruited Marty Ballou on bass and Marty Richards on drums. They were a superlative rhythm section. I wanted this recording to be sparse like a John Lee Hooker album. 

So many of the lyrics came out of my poetry notebooks. At the time, I was very influenced by the poetry of Seamus Heaney, Wallace Stevens, EE Cummings, William Carlos Williams, and Emily Dickinson to name a few. 

To me, artists like Charles Mingus and Miles Davis captured the musical aura I felt most aligned with at the time. In many ways, I wanted the instrumentation to sound similar to a Rudy Van Gelder record - dry and pure- while my voice could be upfront in the mix playing the role of what a Coltrane horn might sound like. I was interested in my form of expressionism both lyrically and instrumentally. 

I worked with artist William Quigley on the album art. Quigley painted a portrait of me for the cover. My brother, Eric Heimbold, took the photo out of the train window that is on the back of the album." – Pete Francis